In my last post I talked and Juliette and what a caring, fun, creative, loving, colourful person she was, when she died I said I’d get a bee tattoo not a worker bee I wasn’t looking to copy her but a bumble bee to remind me of her and our friendship which started from matching underwear, a reminder of the memes and pictures of bees with fuzzy butts we used share. On Monday I got my tattoo of my own fuzzy butt bumble bee with a purple watercolour background to match Juliette’s hair. I know she’d approve of this
A bumble bee tattoo on my wrist with a purple watercolour style background
This post is about suicide though there is no mention of methods.
A bee on pink flowers at the station on the day of Julietteās funeral
Iāve been wanting to write this for 6 months but it was too hard. A potentially creepy comment about owning the same underwear on a drunken toilet selfie did not get my blocked but instead was the start of our friendship. We met through an internet mental health ācommunityā and there were many eye rolls about such places and some of the people in them (though we were aware that we were far from perfect ourselves).
I soon found that Juliette had a wicked sense of humour, she was attractive and creative and had various different hair colours in the time I knew her. She loved animals and owned four gorgeous rats, she had an accidental memorial leg of tattoos for people in life who’d died. Despite her intolerance to bullshit (and lactose) she was loyal and supportive to those she cared about. Hummus memes were frequently shared and still pop up on my Facebook notifications, some of the jokes we shared were truly terrible.
Living in Manchester she got a worker bee tattoo with ādonāt look back in angerā going around it after the Manchester bombing and bees became her āthingā online. A gif of a cat dressed up at a bee (creatively dubbed beecat) falling slowly off a sofa became a of conveying frustration/ crap day/ crap mental health and often summed up how we felt, her mandala cat tattoo was also dubbed beecat.
We had a group chat with three of us in it which was 90% complaining about life, mental health and the internet and the rest was probably random memes and beecat gifs.
I knew Juliette had attempted suicide previously but part of you doesnāt want to accept that it could happen and when it did I didnāt want it to be real. It felt like someone had punched me in the chest; a feeling thatās come and gone for the last 6 months, I cried for hours and have cried for many more since.
Her funeral especially broke me, when many of the person who cared about her had mental health issues and were scattered around not only the country but also the world only a few of us were able to go but a request for people to change their profile pictures to bees spread and on the day of her funeral my social media was full of different types of bees. Iāve never been to a funeral full of people wearing cat ears before but as soon as we arrived we knew it was the right place.
People talk about grief and stages as if itās linear and as if it doesnāt come out of nowhere and punch you in the stomach, itās not that simple or straightforward. Oasis makes me cry, pictures of furry bumblebee butts hanging out of flowers make me smile and part of me still expects her to be online, sometimes I’ll make a really inappropriate joke and I know she’d have laughed and we’d both joke that we were the worst. I thought the 6 month anniversary of her death yesterday would be hard but instead I was caught out on Friday crying for several hours (the ugly snotty puffy face version).
Tomorrow Iām going for a consultation for a bee tattoo so Iāll always have a reminder of our friendship.
I miss you
Beecat loves you x
Helplines arenāt a replacement for proper mental health care but if youāre in distress and need someone to talk to you can contact the Samaritans or if youāre under 35 Papyrus. Text support is available from Shout.
If youāve been bereaved by suicide SOBS can give you support and advice
A picture of me dressed in green and orange dinosaur onesie alongside a picture of a ceramic dinosaur painted to match
Iāve been trying to come up with something to write about as a sort of comeback blog post but my brain isnāt cooperating, nothing I write seems good enough even compared to my normal feelings of nothing I do being good enough. Itās difficult to write about things honestly partly because of the fact that most people who read this know me in real life and ranting about inaccessible transport is easier than being honest about how I feel. So how do I feel? I feel everything and nothing, Iām numb and disconnected and Iām coming home from work and lying on my bed crying, I donāt care about anything except I do I just canāt feel it right now, my heart feels heavy and time feels slowed down, there have been a couple of days when Iāve got in to work recently (and that in itself is a struggle) where Iāve honestly thought I dont know how Iām going to get through the next 8 hours.
Mostly Iām tired, not just physically because Iām also having trouble sleeping but tired of the endless cycles of depression. For me depression comes in cycles, unipolar bipolar without the high. I guess people whoās depression is more constant may think Iām lucky because I do have periods of not being depressed but this is my blog and Iāll cry if I want to (and even if I donāt) and Iām tired of this never really going away of always waiting for it to return.
I had my unusual Birthday existential crisis probably not helped by seeing a family member I hadnāt seen in a couple of years and stirring up fun memories from my upbringing but as ever another year brings more of the feelings of not enough, not doing enough, not achieving enough, not being enough and Iām giving out advice to people who for some reason look up to me and think I have my life together when Iām getting into work in the morning and wondering how Iām going to get through the next 8 hours. Iām a fraud.
This isnāt much of a comeback post but itās why I havenāt written anything in so long.
A countdown for the number of days Iāve been self harm free
I was trying to explain to someone recently the conflicting feelings that come into my head around self harm. I want to self harm but really I donāt, I keep thinking how much better it was to have an outlet for the way I feel but really I know that it wouldnāt help, it didnāt help, not really, not properly but that doesnāt stop my mind jumping to it when Iām stressed or anxious or overwhelmed.
I havenāt self harmed in 391 days but I self harmed from the age of 17 to 32 and intermittently before that, itās not that I want to self harm itās just that I want to breathe and not feel like Iām suffocating, I want to stop feeling like Iām dragging a weight around with me or wading through custards and when itās been something Iāve done for so long itās an immediate thought an ingrained reaction that my mind jumps to when I feel bad.
Iām not naive I know that just because or not self harmed in a long time it doesnāt mean I wonāt ever do it again because I canāt say for sure that I know Iāll never self harm again and even now itās not that I never do anything unhealthy/ potentially harmful or things that could be soon as negative ways of managing things theyāre just less destructive and donāt involve me ending up in a&e. The longer time goes on the bigger the stakes, once I was past 6 months Iād beat my previous longest time, then it was 7 months, 9 months and finally a year.
Sometimes people say what can I do to help or make things easier but I donāt always want them to do anything other than listen or try and see things from my position, I know some people are more practical than others and their reaction is to look for a solution but sometimes the solution is just please listen to me and hear what Iām saying when I say how overwhelmed and stressed I feel, how I miss people I was close to, how alone I feel, how the light at the end of the tunnel feels very dim and distant right now thatās what can be done to help.
Sometimes I just want someone to take me down to the carpark and let me cry
A collage of pictures of Christmas decorations in the office
Before the earth makes that turn moving the UK into 2019 I thought Iād do a 2018 roundup post because itās been a pretty intense year. At Christmas 2017 I said my goal for 2018 was to become permanent staff even if it was still on reduced hours but to have the security of a proper contract not a zero hours one.
The year didnāt get off the best start with my first trip to a&e of the year on the 2nd of January this was also the only visit to a&e all year, just over two weeks after this I started a new medication Lamotragine a mood stabiliser. Iām sure that lamotragine has been the biggest reason that I havenāt self harmed its almost like itās turned something off in my brain thatās made me not want to self harm anymore.
My main goal for the year came true in May when I became permanent staff and took over running the youth service, in November I passed my 6 month probation so now Iām officially permanent staff running a service, managing volunteers a year after I said I wanted to be permanent.
A picture of a letter confirming that I passed my 6 month probation
Iāve been under the mental health service again this year slowly adjusting my medication and Iāve now come off the antipsychotics, reduced one of the medications I was taking for anxiety and only taking the bets blockers as needed. Iāve gone from taking 5 different medications for my mental health to 3.
For someone who often struggles with change there have been so many this year, changes with my job, and the people I work with, two of the people I was closest with at work both left within a few weeks of each other which has been hard and still hasnāt fully sunk in. The office is definitely quieter and Iām missing my verbal sparring partner, Iāll also the person who will always find something positive in everything who took me outside to the carpark to cry because she knew I wouldnāt want anyone in the office to overhear me.
Iāve also become closer to other people at work including two who started at the same time as me, Iāve been out for various drinks and social events (enough to maybe get a reputation) and Iāve had some lovely feedback and support from my volunteers.
As an incredibly indecisive person who struggles to make a choice when there are too many desserts on the menu I bought myself an early Christmas present and got my first tattoo covering some of my self harm scars something very permanent but positive and I love it so much.
A collage of pictures of my new tattoo a caduceus with the words omnes te moriturum amant above it
So 2019 will be off to a busy start with work but also starting with a huge milestone of a year since the last time I self harmed. Of course my love for a certain tv show about a certain grumpy dr has been in full force in 2018 (is a tattoo taking the fandom too far?) and Iāve spent my time off over Christmas working my way through Sherlock, 2019 is looking like a busy year for my fandoms.
Happy new year or happy January or happy Tuesday whichever suits you
I like to make places and things āmineā make them reflect me and my personality, sometimes this surprises people like last year when a drunken colleague who got me as their secret Santa nicely summed me up saying āyouāre pink and girly but not pick and girlyā I love pink, my mobility aids are pink, I have quite a girly* bedroom but Iām mouthy and sweary and suggestions of laddette to lady have been made. I do know that all this gendering of colours and behaviours is to be fair a load of bollocks but lots of people do like to gender everything.
I think for me itās important to make things and spaces reflect me is because I spent a lot of not time feeling like I lacked an identity which is one of the traits of BPD, I know itās normal to go through phases and even identity crisisā especially during adolescence and teenage but i was a human (dinosaur) chameleon Iād change the way I acted and even spoke around others it wasnāt deliberate I just soaked up other peopleās personalities and mannerisms like an emotional sponge.
Of course I went through various embarrassing phases such as the emo phase (though Iām still an emo at heart) but it wasnāt just my tastes and appearance changing I didnāt feel I had a sense of self I felt like a hollow shell lacking an identity.
When I started my job six months ago I bought a pink desk organiser which has since been joined by pink in trays, a couple of toys and a coaster saying punch today in the face, Iāve also decorated it for Christmas and put up motivational postcards on the wall, for me itās important that my work space reflects me especially as I spend so much time at work it really helps my wellbeing to feel itās somewhere I belong physically as well as emotionally. Although I still experience the occasional existential crisis I feel more secure about who I am than I have in the past, part of this is having things Iām passionate about such as my job and writing, thatās not to say my job is my entire identity but mental health is obviously something Iām very passionate about so Iām Georgiesaurus I like pink, I swear a lot and often drink too much, I love House MD, my top artists on Spotify include Bruce Springsteen, First Aid Kit and George Ezra, I believe pineapple belongs on pizza, I hate Theresa May and I wear cat mittens.
Blue, green, red and white laser beams pointing in all directions around s concert venue
I love live music I love going to gigs even though I donāt do it that often itās something I really enjoy. As a rather emo teenager Iād queue up in the cold wearing just jeans and a t-shirt arriving several hours early to guarantee a place at the front by the stage with only the bare minimum of possessions with me to avoid the need for a bag. I would far rather be crushed and sweaty in the mosh pit than sensibly seated or in the less crowded areas at the back.
My first and only festival experience was not something Iām keen to revisit, between the lack of sleep, disrupted medication schedule and discomfort of camping day festivals and open air gigs are more my thing with a comfortable bed to return to
The days of post gig highs from adrenaline and lack of sleep have been replaced by planned annual leave the day after a night out to recover, I canāt stand for anywhere near the length of time a gig lasts and crowds bumping and pushing me not only increase my anxiety but cause physical pain and my rock my already shaky balance.
Today Iām paying for last night although the pain and exhaustion are worth it for such a good time seeing First Aid Kit a band that although I havenāt been following for long Iām now a big fan of and really love the music of, theyāre also amazing live but despite some of the perks of going to a gig as a disabled person like queue jumping or getting a carers ticket for free I do wish I could still be near the front and not forced to be seated out of necessity.
A large metal walk way amongst the treetops at Kew Gardens
Iām not a fiction writer, not that I consider myself a writer as such I enjoy blogging and writing workshops and training but I canāt write stories. I admire people who can write fiction, recently Iāve been reading quite a lot of fan fiction, now I know the reputation a lot of fanfic has and the sort of images it brings up in a lot of peopleās minds – badly written sec stories often with interesting pairings and while there is plenty of that itās not what I read.
I read a description recently where a character was described as āwalking a tightrope across a canyon of pain, trying to keep his balance, occasionally swaying slightlyā although this was a metaphor for physical pain I think itās also very accurate for mental health and the balancing act of trying not to over balance from one problem or another and stay on course. Iām struggling with anxiety and low motivation and the 8 -10 week wait for another CMHT appointment has now been 15 weeks with no appointment in sight.
My tightrope is currently swinging between work and benefits with a chasm of fuck knows what beneath me too deep to see the bottom but with nothing good down there.
Iām behind with work and struggling to talk to anyone about it, Iām frustrated at myself and Iāve come to such a roadblock with this that itās making me feel stupid which is why Iām struggling to ask for help or admit that Iām having a complete mental block, Iāve always struggled to ask for help with things I donāt understand for fear of looking stupid (or being told Iām stupid). Other issues at work currently stressing me out are things beyond my control such as not enough volunteers and having to rush training new ones and now someone close to me is leaving. Have a mentioned before that I struggle with change? Especially changes with relationships? The last couple of weeks have been an emotional shit storm from hiding in the toilets crying because Iām actually devastated that theyāre leaving to losing my temper and shouting at them due to a build up of stress and frustration.
On the other side the benefits and money stress which is something that doesnāt just impact on me, my tax credits have been stopped in what I can only see as an hmrc cock up which has also had a knock on effect in stopping my housing benefit and having to repay the council what theyāve paid so far, I recently had to reapply for my PIP/ disability benefits and still havenāt heard back from that, the scary thing about this is if I lose it completely I wonāt be eligible anymore for tax credits and my boyfriend will lose the carers allowance he gets for supporting me.
As I canāt currently see an end to the tightrope I just have to hope I can keep my balance and not fall over the edge like the character the quote was about.
One year ago today I started working on the youth wellbeing service, initially to support the volunteers when they delivered workshops and helping with training while someone else did the main day to day running of the service. One the first day he threw me in at the deep end and got me to rewrite one of the workshops, despite not bringing my armbands I managed to avoid drowning and quickly decided I wanted more than just the odd hours supporting the volunteers partly because I liked the extra money but also because I was starting to want more than the things I was doing.
I guess I was lucky to have a manager that was happy to give me more responsibility and delegate more work to me plus he didn’t have the time to do the amount of work the youth service needed on top of running another service 3 days a week. I loved the things I did as a volunteer but I was starting to get bored and after years of stagnating I didn’t want to get stuck again so the more I was given the more I took.
This arrangement was meant to last a couple of months then until Christmas then April. On the 26th of April I had my interview for the service lead position and on April the 27th I was told I’d got the job.
Today I jumped ship and went to work in one of the other offices with a different team, since starting this job I’ve found it hard to be alone in the office all day so I tend to pop up in other places from time to time, I celebrated in a work appropriate was with a boiled sweet which my current manager laughed at me for when I sent her a text telling her (feeling the love) but I might go wild tonight and have something stronger, maybe a bag of haribo š
