Last time I wrote a blog I admitted that I had been struggling. Admitted it. I should probably change the language around that, but it's what it feels like. I finally confessed to not feeling well as though not feeling well is something I need to feel bad about. It's really not.
Since last writing here, I went for an assessment because my moods seemed to be cycling pretty dramatically, and it causes other worries than anxiety. It's when you start talking about personality disorders and bi-polar, and quite frankly, I was really scared. It's a strange thing to be scared of, because knowing what it is doesn't change your experience of the thing, but what it does change is the stigma. I know there is a big difference between saying I have an anxiety disorder and having bipolar. I was relieved when the doctor told me she doesn't believe it's personality disorder of bipolar, because as much as it didn't change my diagnosis and it didn't change the fact that previous therapies hadn't necessarily worked, things weren't as bad as they could have been, and she was able to offer me different options than what my GP had offered, so that's progress!
Unfortunately, though everything in mental health treatment takes a lot of time. Between the time when I spoke to my doctors about having an assessment and the time the assessment appointment came was probably about three weeks. Three weeks doesn't sound like so long, but it was enough time for me to start feeling like I was approaching a more even keel again. At other times in my life, I would have simply said, oh, I don't actually need this right now. I'll cancel it. The good thing was I was uncertain about that recovery; I didn't trust it. I wasn't fully back to normal, I didn't truly feel like myself and like I was actually okay, so I knew that looking at treatment options was still the best thing for me, but the fear of that appointment was something else which made me start to cycle downwards (along with a few other things that were going on at the time). I had a couple of days, maybe less, of relief when they told me that they didn't think it was anything worse than my current diagnosis, but then I found that downwards slope again without even actively looking for it. I should point out, I never actively look for it...
The problem was when I tried to get an appointment with my GP, two things happened. The report wasn't with them and I didn't know if it had even been written yet, and the next thing was that the receptionist I spoke to wasn't the one I have spoken to before. I say Mental Health issues with sleep disturbance to the other one and she unblocks an emergency appointment for me that I would normally have to call at 8am for because she knows I won't be able to call at 8am and she knows I'm really not well. This receptionist was adamant I had to call at 8am. I get that people are different, she might be new, she might be more junior, but it was another barrier to me trying to feel better.
The upshot of it all was I started taking Citalopram earlier this week. I have been warned before that it's evil, that it makes you feel worse, that it steals your soul and feeds it to Satan's pet donkey... I've heard a lot of bad about it, but I've also heard a lot of good, and quite frankly, I needed to try something. Whilst I wait for therapy, whilst I wait for therapy to work, whilst I try and get back to the things which I know help me to feel better, I needed something to act as a crutch so I can get to do all of those things. I was exhausted, I felt lost and scared and in some ways beaten. Granted, taking the Citalopram I am more exhausted, but I know that that is temporary, and actually some rest is good for me. Granted, I am trying really hard to get back to a sleeping pattern that normal people recognise and not that is attributed to small winged creatures who hang out with Dracula, but I'll take what I can get at the moment.
In all of this though, I know this is not my lowest, and part of the reason I know that is because I'm still using 4thewords and I've just hit a 60 day streak. And that means a whole lot to me.
7 Mar 2020
25 Feb 2020
F*ing and Jeffing,
It's been about eighteen months now since I went to my first parkrun. I've done one half marathon and my next one is about four and a half weeks away. My first marathon is about nine and a half weeks away. By now, I should be racking up long distance runs like there is no tomorrow, but I'm not, so there is a phrase for how I will get through both of these races, and it's called Jeffing. I'm going to walk a bit and run a bit, but since I'll inevitably be swearing my way through it, let's just call it F*ing and Jeffing.
One of the reasons that I started running was because my mental health took 'a little dip'. It actually looked a little bit more like a kamikaze nose dive off a very steep cliff. It wasn't overnight, but it happened very quickly and I was struggling for a long time. I started running again as a way to try and make things better. In some ways it does.
My Mental Health issue batters me at the worst of times. I have spent much of the last few weeks trying to convince myself to train and not being able to, because I haven't been able to sleep, I haven't been eating properly and I haven't been going to therapy or taking medication. Some of these things have been a conscious thing - I haven't got along with a lot of the medications that I have tried - some of them have been unconscious - I don't really notice when I stop eating properly. I do what I can to try and stop myself from getting more ill, but it doesn't always work out.
I am trying my best to come back from the latest dip, but it's taking longer than usual. I'm hoping that my continued commitment to writing may help.
One of the reasons that I started running was because my mental health took 'a little dip'. It actually looked a little bit more like a kamikaze nose dive off a very steep cliff. It wasn't overnight, but it happened very quickly and I was struggling for a long time. I started running again as a way to try and make things better. In some ways it does.
My Mental Health issue batters me at the worst of times. I have spent much of the last few weeks trying to convince myself to train and not being able to, because I haven't been able to sleep, I haven't been eating properly and I haven't been going to therapy or taking medication. Some of these things have been a conscious thing - I haven't got along with a lot of the medications that I have tried - some of them have been unconscious - I don't really notice when I stop eating properly. I do what I can to try and stop myself from getting more ill, but it doesn't always work out.
I am trying my best to come back from the latest dip, but it's taking longer than usual. I'm hoping that my continued commitment to writing may help.
5 Dec 2019
NaNow That It's Over,
When NaNoWriMo finished, I raised a glass of prosecco alone in my flat celebrating the ending of it all. It was a really long month this year, and it was really hard for a lot of reasons, and some of those reasons I don't know.
It has been over for a little less than a week, and whilst there isn't the constant stress that invades all of life, I've also only made myself sit and write twice this week and I miss the social elements of write-ins, because whilst chatting with people at work is nice, it's also not quite as sociable as I want to be. It's not talking to writers about their novels and then encouraging them to keep going. It's certainly not everyone being almost as invested in everyone else's project as the person writing it.
Although we haven't had our Thank Goodness It's Over party, it feels like I have my weekends back.
This year was my wordiest year so far, managing to write over 101k, and I will hopefully write something more on that later. I managed two 20k days, which was amazing, and I also kept it together through a month where I felt like my anxiety was pulling me in a million different directions. Despite the overwhelming urge to sleep all of the time, I got up every day, I did my job and I also worked on my novel. I was an ML, I supported my writers, I ran Twitter word sprints and supported other writers and I was all over the Facebook pages for advice, the moments when people forgot words and other general cheerleading. Somehow managed to avoid ever writing a blog post in that, which isn't like me during November.
The upshot of it all is that it feels like only yesterday that NaNoWriMo started, but it seemed to take forever to come to an end, and as a team we needed it to end, but we also didn't want it to. I feel really conflicted about it, I feel disappointed that I haven't been writing as much as I was during November, but I am also so so glad that the amount of stress I was under has decreased, because I'm not sure how long I would have been able to keep going through that.
Catch you later.
It has been over for a little less than a week, and whilst there isn't the constant stress that invades all of life, I've also only made myself sit and write twice this week and I miss the social elements of write-ins, because whilst chatting with people at work is nice, it's also not quite as sociable as I want to be. It's not talking to writers about their novels and then encouraging them to keep going. It's certainly not everyone being almost as invested in everyone else's project as the person writing it.
Although we haven't had our Thank Goodness It's Over party, it feels like I have my weekends back.
This year was my wordiest year so far, managing to write over 101k, and I will hopefully write something more on that later. I managed two 20k days, which was amazing, and I also kept it together through a month where I felt like my anxiety was pulling me in a million different directions. Despite the overwhelming urge to sleep all of the time, I got up every day, I did my job and I also worked on my novel. I was an ML, I supported my writers, I ran Twitter word sprints and supported other writers and I was all over the Facebook pages for advice, the moments when people forgot words and other general cheerleading. Somehow managed to avoid ever writing a blog post in that, which isn't like me during November.
The upshot of it all is that it feels like only yesterday that NaNoWriMo started, but it seemed to take forever to come to an end, and as a team we needed it to end, but we also didn't want it to. I feel really conflicted about it, I feel disappointed that I haven't been writing as much as I was during November, but I am also so so glad that the amount of stress I was under has decreased, because I'm not sure how long I would have been able to keep going through that.
Catch you later.
3 Oct 2019
Prepping for Pantsing,
Every year, during NaNoWriMo, I proudly pronounce myself Team Pantser, and that's still the case. I am so proud to wear my knickers like Superman and fly by the seat of my pants through NaNo (metaphorically, of course), but that is only with respect to planning the novel. When it comes to Preptober - trust me, I am a prepper.
When I finished NaNoWriMo as a winner for the first time, it was my second attempt. I wrote at college, I wrote on the bus, I wrote at home and for the first three days I had no idea what I was writing. Some of it was utter garbage, it was a stream of consciousness, but I was writing, and I was doing it at speed. The novel that was born in that competition was eventually dedicated to my toaster, my kettle, and my mum. I've proved since then that I don't need to be living with my mum (and relying on her for cooking dinners and making brews) to finish as a winner, but right at that point, I needed her as much as I needed to win.
Over the next few years, I have gotten faster and faster with writing and I've also gotten better and better at preparing myself. October 31st tends to be a day where I nap after work and I get myself a pizza and from midnight, I eat pizza and write a couple of thousand words, but I know it's not just that. I have an idea of the number of events I will be going to, I have an idea of what I'm going to be writing with - typewriter, pen, and paper, something electrical... - and I have a plan for keeping myself healthy for at least the first week. I shop cook and freeze what I can and make sure I have bananas. There's plenty that I think about and make decisions on practical planning for NaNoWriMo.
As such, the @londonnano Instagram page is running a #preptober series of practical things to think about ahead of 31st October. Feel free to follow us, like, comment or message. I'll be writing some blogs on the subjects that are posted up there, too!
When I finished NaNoWriMo as a winner for the first time, it was my second attempt. I wrote at college, I wrote on the bus, I wrote at home and for the first three days I had no idea what I was writing. Some of it was utter garbage, it was a stream of consciousness, but I was writing, and I was doing it at speed. The novel that was born in that competition was eventually dedicated to my toaster, my kettle, and my mum. I've proved since then that I don't need to be living with my mum (and relying on her for cooking dinners and making brews) to finish as a winner, but right at that point, I needed her as much as I needed to win.
Over the next few years, I have gotten faster and faster with writing and I've also gotten better and better at preparing myself. October 31st tends to be a day where I nap after work and I get myself a pizza and from midnight, I eat pizza and write a couple of thousand words, but I know it's not just that. I have an idea of the number of events I will be going to, I have an idea of what I'm going to be writing with - typewriter, pen, and paper, something electrical... - and I have a plan for keeping myself healthy for at least the first week. I shop cook and freeze what I can and make sure I have bananas. There's plenty that I think about and make decisions on practical planning for NaNoWriMo.
As such, the @londonnano Instagram page is running a #preptober series of practical things to think about ahead of 31st October. Feel free to follow us, like, comment or message. I'll be writing some blogs on the subjects that are posted up there, too!
4 Sept 2019
Over It,
I realise it's been a while and I'm sure with the multiple blogs on here about my struggles with my mental health you can guess why it's been so long, but this blog isn't about that. For those who haven't experienced one of my rants before, now might be the time to get yourself a cup of tea and settle in, because this could be a long one.
We, as in society, seem to have become pretty good at calling out phrases like 'man up' as toxic for mental health, but there is a phrase, or a collection of them, which relate to grief and the recovery from grief which I think need to swiftly take stock of their belongings and vamoose out of the door. Granted, our understanding of grief really needs to change, too.
A few years ago, a friend spoke to me about thinking of the loss of a relationship as much like the way we think of losing a loved one when they pass. No, not because we had both been through terrible breakups (we had) and we wished the other parties in those breakups would shuffle swiftly off this mortal coil (I'll make no comment either way) but because it's a loss of a person you were close to, or a loss of who you thought a person was, or who they would be to you. It's the loss of hopes, dreams, and delicately made plans. You can no more step back into that environment, the one where the instinct to call that person with the good, the bad and the downright hilarious doesn't need to be resisted with all of the willpower you can muster than you can call the friend or family member who is no longer with us. It is a loss of an irreplaceable person and should be acknowledged as such.
When we're grieving though, be it for a relationship, a family member or a friend, occasionally a novel or something of that ilk, we seem to get a few days or perhaps weeks depending on the perceived significance of the loss, in which we are given some room to understand this grief and then, urgh, get over it.
We talk about getting over it, getting around it, getting past it, dealing with it, burying it, letting the past lie and all of these other phrases that seem to rely heavily on the idea of grief as a linear structure. You start at the widest part of a cone and as time goes on it diminishes, but surely experience should tell us that isn't true.
A few months ago, Roundtree's brought out a bag of Fruit Pastels - just the red and black ones. I grabbed them, shoved them in my cart and reached for my phone to call my nana, and my heart broke in the middle of Sainsbury's. My nana passed away whilst I was at university. It's been quite a few years, but it hit me all over again that day because she loved black fruit pastels and I love the red ones and this was the perfect sharing pack of sweets for us. She didn't eat the other colours, I prefer eating the ones which I love, but sweets are sweets and I eat them anyway. I still bought the bag of black and reds, but it took me a couple of days to convince myself to open them.
There are things that still hit my mother and me now. It's things like not having her scone recipe written down. Her scones were incredible, and she had spent so many years perfecting the recipe, but we never asked her to write it down. There are cardigans that she knitted me, my brother, and my cousins when we were babies, long since puked on beyond repair, but even the patterns are gone - we thought we would never knit them - and the names never remembered, because I was a baby and my mother was raising one. There's some that we find in charity shops - probably the same fate that her's went to and perhaps due to another family suffering a similar loss. It's wonderful to find her in such moments, but it happens with a pang of sadness. Her loss provoked us getting rid of them, or losing the scone recipe, and that momentary triumph can be slightly eclipsed by a sense of loss that is no longer all-encompassing or everpresent, but I don't imagine will ever truly be 'dealt with'.
I called her the day I got my A-level results to tell her I got into Heythrop, but I never got to tell her I graduated or show her a photo of me getting my degree. I couldn't share the stories of my mum having to help me dye my hair the night before because it was so many shades of - I think it was red - that it looked ridiculous, and the photos of this event would be hanging in my mum's living room for years, or the pride that, despite wearing some really incredible heels (stiletto-heeled boots from Killa Heels) I got up the stairs, across the stage and back to my seats without incident, but after the reception (and a lot of fizz) I was a bit wobbly on them, so walked barefoot down Kensington High Street when we were leaving. I didn't get to share the moment of sheer panic that they read my name before my friends name, despite her's being first alphabetically, and the slight chaos as I tried to hiss 'I'm not graduating without her' at the person reading the names (though they'd simply got us switched on the list).
My mum recently sponsored me for her and my grandpa for the London Marathon, and when she told me she was going to, I had to give myself a minute. I get emotional about running anyway. I cried at the end of London Landmarks Half Marathon this year, and the painkillers had kicked in so it wasn't the pain in my knee. It was half relief that I had done it, and half sheer bloody pride that I had made it through a half marathon. I can only imagine how I'll feel after the full one, but it would really have been something to be able to tell them that I had done it and to show them the medal that I had been training for.
My point is, it doesn't matter the amount of time which has gone past. Moments of grief can creep in quietly alongside moments of happiness. Sometimes they are more than moments. There are times and places or activities which can bring up that emotion so acutely, and the phrases get over it, I thought you were over it or one day you will be passed it don't help. What can help, for me, is to acknowledge it, face it, give it its moment in a way, and see if it passes on its own, but if not, choose to feel it alongside the other emotions the only way I know how.
We, as in society, seem to have become pretty good at calling out phrases like 'man up' as toxic for mental health, but there is a phrase, or a collection of them, which relate to grief and the recovery from grief which I think need to swiftly take stock of their belongings and vamoose out of the door. Granted, our understanding of grief really needs to change, too.
A few years ago, a friend spoke to me about thinking of the loss of a relationship as much like the way we think of losing a loved one when they pass. No, not because we had both been through terrible breakups (we had) and we wished the other parties in those breakups would shuffle swiftly off this mortal coil (I'll make no comment either way) but because it's a loss of a person you were close to, or a loss of who you thought a person was, or who they would be to you. It's the loss of hopes, dreams, and delicately made plans. You can no more step back into that environment, the one where the instinct to call that person with the good, the bad and the downright hilarious doesn't need to be resisted with all of the willpower you can muster than you can call the friend or family member who is no longer with us. It is a loss of an irreplaceable person and should be acknowledged as such.
When we're grieving though, be it for a relationship, a family member or a friend, occasionally a novel or something of that ilk, we seem to get a few days or perhaps weeks depending on the perceived significance of the loss, in which we are given some room to understand this grief and then, urgh, get over it.
We talk about getting over it, getting around it, getting past it, dealing with it, burying it, letting the past lie and all of these other phrases that seem to rely heavily on the idea of grief as a linear structure. You start at the widest part of a cone and as time goes on it diminishes, but surely experience should tell us that isn't true.
A few months ago, Roundtree's brought out a bag of Fruit Pastels - just the red and black ones. I grabbed them, shoved them in my cart and reached for my phone to call my nana, and my heart broke in the middle of Sainsbury's. My nana passed away whilst I was at university. It's been quite a few years, but it hit me all over again that day because she loved black fruit pastels and I love the red ones and this was the perfect sharing pack of sweets for us. She didn't eat the other colours, I prefer eating the ones which I love, but sweets are sweets and I eat them anyway. I still bought the bag of black and reds, but it took me a couple of days to convince myself to open them.
There are things that still hit my mother and me now. It's things like not having her scone recipe written down. Her scones were incredible, and she had spent so many years perfecting the recipe, but we never asked her to write it down. There are cardigans that she knitted me, my brother, and my cousins when we were babies, long since puked on beyond repair, but even the patterns are gone - we thought we would never knit them - and the names never remembered, because I was a baby and my mother was raising one. There's some that we find in charity shops - probably the same fate that her's went to and perhaps due to another family suffering a similar loss. It's wonderful to find her in such moments, but it happens with a pang of sadness. Her loss provoked us getting rid of them, or losing the scone recipe, and that momentary triumph can be slightly eclipsed by a sense of loss that is no longer all-encompassing or everpresent, but I don't imagine will ever truly be 'dealt with'.
I called her the day I got my A-level results to tell her I got into Heythrop, but I never got to tell her I graduated or show her a photo of me getting my degree. I couldn't share the stories of my mum having to help me dye my hair the night before because it was so many shades of - I think it was red - that it looked ridiculous, and the photos of this event would be hanging in my mum's living room for years, or the pride that, despite wearing some really incredible heels (stiletto-heeled boots from Killa Heels) I got up the stairs, across the stage and back to my seats without incident, but after the reception (and a lot of fizz) I was a bit wobbly on them, so walked barefoot down Kensington High Street when we were leaving. I didn't get to share the moment of sheer panic that they read my name before my friends name, despite her's being first alphabetically, and the slight chaos as I tried to hiss 'I'm not graduating without her' at the person reading the names (though they'd simply got us switched on the list).
My mum recently sponsored me for her and my grandpa for the London Marathon, and when she told me she was going to, I had to give myself a minute. I get emotional about running anyway. I cried at the end of London Landmarks Half Marathon this year, and the painkillers had kicked in so it wasn't the pain in my knee. It was half relief that I had done it, and half sheer bloody pride that I had made it through a half marathon. I can only imagine how I'll feel after the full one, but it would really have been something to be able to tell them that I had done it and to show them the medal that I had been training for.
My point is, it doesn't matter the amount of time which has gone past. Moments of grief can creep in quietly alongside moments of happiness. Sometimes they are more than moments. There are times and places or activities which can bring up that emotion so acutely, and the phrases get over it, I thought you were over it or one day you will be passed it don't help. What can help, for me, is to acknowledge it, face it, give it its moment in a way, and see if it passes on its own, but if not, choose to feel it alongside the other emotions the only way I know how.
22 Jun 2019
How Are They Not Panicking?,
Once upon a time, there was a man named Alexander Parkes, who created something plastic in about 1862. Whilst he isn't single-handedly to blame for the fact that the surface of the world can now be seen to be covered in a layer of it, the deepest dived depths of the oceans are littered with it and very few people seem to give enough of a toss to do anything meaningful about it, from my (exceedingly limited) research, he seems to be the start of the chain.
Now, climate change and plastic litter aren't exactly the same thing, but they're produced by the same attitude, which is a generalised ignorance/IDGAF to how the next generation on this Earth cope, I just want my money, my fast fashion, my something for nothing, my ease, my convenience, my slice of the pie. The best reason I can see for this is either the fact that it's what the previous generation got or an enduring feeling of entitlement from everybody who likes to say that millennials are entitled little shits. Either way, I'm conflating the two issues for the purposes of this rant/blog.
Yesterday the world was stunned as a relatively senior government official roughly handled a peaceful protester out of a fancy dinner. The fact that this protestor was a woman and that he's previously made speeches about how women in Britain should feel safe is awful, don't get me wrong, but to treat anyone like that is despicable. Furthermore, how is he, and every other politician in that room, not waking up anxious about the direction that we're headed in? I know I have an anxiety disorder, but I'm genuinely scared.
But here's the big problem I have. The other video I watched on my phone this morning was about the mountains of plastic that we've all dutifully deposited into our recycling bins in the hope of creating a better tomorrow. We're trying. We the public understand we're in a f**king mess and WE. ARE. TRYING. but it turns out that, since China stopped importing plastic waste in 2018 an old problem got a hundred times bigger and now there are large scale dumps of recyclable left out to the elements, where they are damaged to the point they can no longer be recycled for one thing, and for another, there are more and more of them ending up in our water. Yes, it's our water. If the next major conflict in the world is over resources, it won't be about oil - it's going to be water.
With that in mind, I frantically looked into something which has interested me for a while. In Google'd how I can recycle more at home and cut out the middle man.
The first thing that came up was a flooring company and how they use these large scale, industrial machines (which would definitely not fit into my living room) to recycle their own waste and some of the waste from their suppliers, into vinyl flooring. Now, that's incredible and I can only hope that they link up with companies like Huf Haus, who prefabricate housing modules and use their own sawdust waste as a component in their insulation, to provide homes with a really decent eco-vision behind them, but Huf Haus is expensive. It's a build you're own vision of homes, and it's based in Germany so there are all those complications like exchange rates and Brexit, plus all of the miles that the materials travel when they're made into their pre-fabricated panels, but still...
As much as those two companies are amazing, and they are, even them working together is just this idea of a small number of people doing low waste or zero waste really well, and it's not something which can be replicated on a major scale to address the plastic problem (even if prefabricating housing means you can reduce costs, provide a better environment for workers and build homes much more quickly which would also cut across to the housing crisis, and using a lot of recyclable materials which are already doing nothing would significantly reduce costs further). (Take a breath, Charlie)
There is a company which has released their designs for a small production line like set of machines which grind plastic into small pieces, like Hama beads for example, melt these pieces together and create either a wire, which can be wound into things like bowls, or light shades, or can also be melted into molds to create things like bowls, spinning tops, ornaments, or really anything you wanted to make as long as you could create or source the metal mold for it, but the problem with that is, well there are several.
First one, who has the space to fit these things? I live in London, so that's a no. Everywhere we are being encouraged to economise on space, because it's cheaper and because then they can jam more people into a smaller area and the housing crisis looks a little bit less awful through the government issue rose-tinted spectacles. Number 2 (deviating to numerical indicators makes them easier to find - sorry.) These machines are still expensive. I applaud the people at that gave away their designs, really, I do, but the number of people who really have the cash to commit to something like this is not going to be high if we're being completely honest. 3, These are not some IKEA flat packs with a funky sounding name. They are pretty complex pieces of machinery and you need to be able to build them. There are a lot of Youtube videos provided to walk you through the process, but there is a certain amount of tool waving know-how you're going to need to bring to the table, too. And 4, there are only so many plastic bowls and light shades and other things we need in the world. Just because it's made of recycled plastic, doesn't mean people are going to want it.
So, where the hell does that leave us? Or me, because I was originally thinking about this in a context of what can I do.
Well, it seems I'm in the exact same boat I was before. All I can do is try my best within the limits of what I am able to do. I'm proud of the fact I own metal straws and generally, say no to plastic ones in bars (generally because sometimes I don't see them until they're in my drink and then they're going in the bin regardless). I'm proud that I haven't used a disposable coffee cup since the beginning of this year. It has been longer than that, but that's the marker I gave myself. I'm proud I haven't faltered on that even what I've forgotten my reusable and I really want a coffee. I'm proud that most of my clothes come from charity shops or eBay because there is still a hell of a lot of life in them yet. I'm proud that I fix things rather than throw them and I'm proud that I do what I can to find options for purchasing things with reduced or no plastic. I'm proud of the fact that I've been getting cans of diet coke when I want a diet coke, rather than bottles because cans are easier to recycle and are more wider recycled. As far as I'm aware, there aren't the same mountains of Coke cans in Malaysia or elsewhere that have been discarded. I am so proud of those things, but it still doesn't feel like enough, and I don't know what more to do.
Despite the anxiety, despite Pete's screaming that the world is on fire, I know this is something it's reasonable to worry about, and it just has me questioning, how are politicians, bankers, billionaires and the girl who lives in my building who puts her food waste in plastic bags, despite the fact I've politely told her it's a redundant thing to do...how the hell are they not scared? How are they not panicking?
Now, climate change and plastic litter aren't exactly the same thing, but they're produced by the same attitude, which is a generalised ignorance/IDGAF to how the next generation on this Earth cope, I just want my money, my fast fashion, my something for nothing, my ease, my convenience, my slice of the pie. The best reason I can see for this is either the fact that it's what the previous generation got or an enduring feeling of entitlement from everybody who likes to say that millennials are entitled little shits. Either way, I'm conflating the two issues for the purposes of this rant/blog.
Yesterday the world was stunned as a relatively senior government official roughly handled a peaceful protester out of a fancy dinner. The fact that this protestor was a woman and that he's previously made speeches about how women in Britain should feel safe is awful, don't get me wrong, but to treat anyone like that is despicable. Furthermore, how is he, and every other politician in that room, not waking up anxious about the direction that we're headed in? I know I have an anxiety disorder, but I'm genuinely scared.
But here's the big problem I have. The other video I watched on my phone this morning was about the mountains of plastic that we've all dutifully deposited into our recycling bins in the hope of creating a better tomorrow. We're trying. We the public understand we're in a f**king mess and WE. ARE. TRYING. but it turns out that, since China stopped importing plastic waste in 2018 an old problem got a hundred times bigger and now there are large scale dumps of recyclable left out to the elements, where they are damaged to the point they can no longer be recycled for one thing, and for another, there are more and more of them ending up in our water. Yes, it's our water. If the next major conflict in the world is over resources, it won't be about oil - it's going to be water.
With that in mind, I frantically looked into something which has interested me for a while. In Google'd how I can recycle more at home and cut out the middle man.
The first thing that came up was a flooring company and how they use these large scale, industrial machines (which would definitely not fit into my living room) to recycle their own waste and some of the waste from their suppliers, into vinyl flooring. Now, that's incredible and I can only hope that they link up with companies like Huf Haus, who prefabricate housing modules and use their own sawdust waste as a component in their insulation, to provide homes with a really decent eco-vision behind them, but Huf Haus is expensive. It's a build you're own vision of homes, and it's based in Germany so there are all those complications like exchange rates and Brexit, plus all of the miles that the materials travel when they're made into their pre-fabricated panels, but still...
As much as those two companies are amazing, and they are, even them working together is just this idea of a small number of people doing low waste or zero waste really well, and it's not something which can be replicated on a major scale to address the plastic problem (even if prefabricating housing means you can reduce costs, provide a better environment for workers and build homes much more quickly which would also cut across to the housing crisis, and using a lot of recyclable materials which are already doing nothing would significantly reduce costs further). (Take a breath, Charlie)
There is a company which has released their designs for a small production line like set of machines which grind plastic into small pieces, like Hama beads for example, melt these pieces together and create either a wire, which can be wound into things like bowls, or light shades, or can also be melted into molds to create things like bowls, spinning tops, ornaments, or really anything you wanted to make as long as you could create or source the metal mold for it, but the problem with that is, well there are several.
First one, who has the space to fit these things? I live in London, so that's a no. Everywhere we are being encouraged to economise on space, because it's cheaper and because then they can jam more people into a smaller area and the housing crisis looks a little bit less awful through the government issue rose-tinted spectacles. Number 2 (deviating to numerical indicators makes them easier to find - sorry.) These machines are still expensive. I applaud the people at that gave away their designs, really, I do, but the number of people who really have the cash to commit to something like this is not going to be high if we're being completely honest. 3, These are not some IKEA flat packs with a funky sounding name. They are pretty complex pieces of machinery and you need to be able to build them. There are a lot of Youtube videos provided to walk you through the process, but there is a certain amount of tool waving know-how you're going to need to bring to the table, too. And 4, there are only so many plastic bowls and light shades and other things we need in the world. Just because it's made of recycled plastic, doesn't mean people are going to want it.
So, where the hell does that leave us? Or me, because I was originally thinking about this in a context of what can I do.
Well, it seems I'm in the exact same boat I was before. All I can do is try my best within the limits of what I am able to do. I'm proud of the fact I own metal straws and generally, say no to plastic ones in bars (generally because sometimes I don't see them until they're in my drink and then they're going in the bin regardless). I'm proud that I haven't used a disposable coffee cup since the beginning of this year. It has been longer than that, but that's the marker I gave myself. I'm proud I haven't faltered on that even what I've forgotten my reusable and I really want a coffee. I'm proud that most of my clothes come from charity shops or eBay because there is still a hell of a lot of life in them yet. I'm proud that I fix things rather than throw them and I'm proud that I do what I can to find options for purchasing things with reduced or no plastic. I'm proud of the fact that I've been getting cans of diet coke when I want a diet coke, rather than bottles because cans are easier to recycle and are more wider recycled. As far as I'm aware, there aren't the same mountains of Coke cans in Malaysia or elsewhere that have been discarded. I am so proud of those things, but it still doesn't feel like enough, and I don't know what more to do.
Despite the anxiety, despite Pete's screaming that the world is on fire, I know this is something it's reasonable to worry about, and it just has me questioning, how are politicians, bankers, billionaires and the girl who lives in my building who puts her food waste in plastic bags, despite the fact I've politely told her it's a redundant thing to do...how the hell are they not scared? How are they not panicking?
20 Jun 2019
Starting from the Bottom Now We're, Oh Wait, There's the Bottom Again,
So, here we are again.
Up until recently, things had been looking up. I was getting better, my anxiety, Pete, was getting back in his box and leaving me alone for slightly longer stretches (who's a good boy, Pete!) and my giant photo wall of happiness was growing at an alarming rate with all of the amazing things I was doing.
And then it was like moving forwards on the game 'Snakes and Ladders' and there was a snake and I felt like I was right back to square 1. It's like what I imagine was the moment of realization in 'The Good Place' that actually, this was the bad place. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what it felt like.
This blog is going to be super fun to write because the c key on my laptop keeps sticking and I can't right the write right first time over.
My new job was sold to me as an idea of the good place. It was a permanent promotion, it was shiny, spangly and high profile. Just under 9 weeks in and I'm struggling to keep my head out of the toilet bowl because today feels like the same level of stress as when I was finishing university. We're back into the stage where I want to throw up, and will only eat bananas and carbs. (Carb-y things make it difficult to vomit and bananas have a lot of vitamins in. There is logical even in my "madness".)
I know I'm lucky to have a job. I'm really lucky to have a good job, but when you're job is putting pressure on your mental health to this extent, it's not luck, it's torture. I have worked really hard on my career, but I've also worked really hard on being okay, and I was getting there. This slip is so wounding.
Thankfully, this not being the first time I've fallen on the wagon and down the steep, rocky slope to rock bottom, this time I remembered to bring one of those gubs that shoots grappling hooks back up to the road. This time, instead of letting myself continue to plummet, I've hit a ledge and thrown my hands up in the air and said "I need help" "This can't continue" "I can't do this" and most importantly "I'm not letting this happen to me." This time, I know my trigger, and I'm taking my finger firmly off of it and I'm making a plan.
Instead of looking at myself in the mirror and allowing myself to feel like a failure, I'm reminding myself that looking after me is more important than the job. It has to be. That's not to say I'm giving up on my job and my life and moving back into my mum's house because I'm done with adulthood - though God, sometimes I wish I could do that - but I am working with my boss to take some of the stress out and build some more flexibility in. Despite the title of this blog, I've not reached my rock bottom again, because this time I realised I was falling, and I accepted it was happening in time to not let it get that far.
Anxiety is a horrible thing. Pete tried to tell me it was my fault today. I wasn't trying hard enough, I wasn't smart enough and I was being lazy. It feels somewhat miraculous that, despite all of that above, I was strong enough. I was strong enough to tell Pete to piss off. Back in your box now, Pete. I'm starting from a new bottom and I'm going to hike my way back up.
Up until recently, things had been looking up. I was getting better, my anxiety, Pete, was getting back in his box and leaving me alone for slightly longer stretches (who's a good boy, Pete!) and my giant photo wall of happiness was growing at an alarming rate with all of the amazing things I was doing.
And then it was like moving forwards on the game 'Snakes and Ladders' and there was a snake and I felt like I was right back to square 1. It's like what I imagine was the moment of realization in 'The Good Place' that actually, this was the bad place. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what it felt like.
This blog is going to be super fun to write because the c key on my laptop keeps sticking and I can't right the write right first time over.
My new job was sold to me as an idea of the good place. It was a permanent promotion, it was shiny, spangly and high profile. Just under 9 weeks in and I'm struggling to keep my head out of the toilet bowl because today feels like the same level of stress as when I was finishing university. We're back into the stage where I want to throw up, and will only eat bananas and carbs. (Carb-y things make it difficult to vomit and bananas have a lot of vitamins in. There is logical even in my "madness".)
I know I'm lucky to have a job. I'm really lucky to have a good job, but when you're job is putting pressure on your mental health to this extent, it's not luck, it's torture. I have worked really hard on my career, but I've also worked really hard on being okay, and I was getting there. This slip is so wounding.
Thankfully, this not being the first time I've fallen on the wagon and down the steep, rocky slope to rock bottom, this time I remembered to bring one of those gubs that shoots grappling hooks back up to the road. This time, instead of letting myself continue to plummet, I've hit a ledge and thrown my hands up in the air and said "I need help" "This can't continue" "I can't do this" and most importantly "I'm not letting this happen to me." This time, I know my trigger, and I'm taking my finger firmly off of it and I'm making a plan.
Instead of looking at myself in the mirror and allowing myself to feel like a failure, I'm reminding myself that looking after me is more important than the job. It has to be. That's not to say I'm giving up on my job and my life and moving back into my mum's house because I'm done with adulthood - though God, sometimes I wish I could do that - but I am working with my boss to take some of the stress out and build some more flexibility in. Despite the title of this blog, I've not reached my rock bottom again, because this time I realised I was falling, and I accepted it was happening in time to not let it get that far.
Anxiety is a horrible thing. Pete tried to tell me it was my fault today. I wasn't trying hard enough, I wasn't smart enough and I was being lazy. It feels somewhat miraculous that, despite all of that above, I was strong enough. I was strong enough to tell Pete to piss off. Back in your box now, Pete. I'm starting from a new bottom and I'm going to hike my way back up.
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