A double life, high heels and The Co-op

It's occurred to me that I lead a double life sometimes.. In the privacy of my own home I can do all the crying, chucking things across the room, drinking absinthe and talking to Roy Walker on the TV.. in the same clothes I slept in/wore yesterday/slept in the night before etc.. but in public I have to do my best to hold myself together - smiley, clean, heels and tales of how fantastic my life is.

It's at times difficult to work myself out and where I belong - I can be sitting in a grotty NHS waiting room with dog eared half torn poster advertising Anthrax or Clamidia in the morning, and that evening I can be seated and Chtardonay'd in the Worsley footy players. It gives me a sense of confusion, and I forget who knows the real me and the other real me.

Years ago I was obsessed with fame - I wanted to be famous - I thought I WAS famous, I remember working at the Co-op in Cambridge in my teens and, as a shelf stacker, I was allowed in the store room. I was convinced that this was of VIP status, like I was allowed backstage. Now I can't think of anything worse (than fame - not store cupboards). I enjoy the anonymity of London too much. Just to contradict myself, I was once on The F Word talking about the co-op, but they edited what I said. I said my least favorite supermarket was the Co-op and they edited it to reveal that my favorite supermarket was the Co-op. And the fact that I'm talking too much about the Co-op in my blog means that I should stop right here!

Side effects of effectiveness

A few of you have mentioned that I've been quite quiet these last few weeks on the ol' blog, it's a tricky one, I'm in a medical Catch 22 scenario. On my prescribed dose of medication I get hideous obsessive compulsive thoughts, and sometimes they seep into actual visions, but at the same time they stablilise my moods. However, on a lower dose, my moods are unstable - mixed episodes of excitability and excessive lows - and anxiety attacks. So, one day I can't cope with the OCT's and take 100mgs the next day I can't cope with the downsides and double or even triple the dose. My partner watched me tear my hair out (metaphorically, I'm on a mission to look like Julie Christie in her twenties) and tried to contact East London mental health services but he would have had better luck building a Tesco Metro on the moon. I'm also very, very tired. The upping and downing of my meds are doing a yo-yo effect on my energy levels. Caffeine and Cava are top of my shopping list and the lists in general are getting longer - I even found myself writing a list of lists the other day!

Bear with me - I do have a few things i want to write about, I just need to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Agro/social-phobia, listomania and Roy Walker

Well we've just had a heat-wave in London (whoo - hoo!) From my window I could see people heading towards Victoria Park, and smell barbecues, and hear street music (and not just the tinny RnB that slowly kills the car stereo that someone has just nicked but is too young to drive off in - it's on the Hackney The Musical compilation, I'll come back to that). Everything in me was saying "Get out there, it's bloody beautiful!" but I could not for love or money do it. Sounds pathetic, I mean I have fully functioning legs, a tenner and a map - that's all you need for a free afternoon out in London - but my psyche was regressing to a thirteen year old when told to do something you really don't want to do - arms crossed, eye's down, "Not doing it. Don't care, still not doing it". I wish my bouts of argro/social-phobia would sync with the Met office and match weather conditions. Besides, when you don't have human contact for days or weeks on end, you start to rely too much on TV for company and I am starting to compare myself to Big Fat Gypsy Weddings - Why can't I live in a caravan outside a complete strangers house?  

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has taught me to find a positive in every negative. Unable to leave the flat I am.. 

a) not going to develop skin cancer 

b) not going on a spendathon - yes there is internet shopping but my weakness is household pets, at my worst I had ten rabbits and twelve guinea pigs (eighty eight legs in total, in a flat, no garden)  

c) not going for a quick spritzer to come home three days later. 

And, more importantly, I have Roy Walker to entertain me for four hours a day, he is on my top five things that keep me sane. The top ten list goes like this (in no particular order)..

Medication - obviously

This blog - it's expressive

Take A Break - stories such as My ex through acid on my chips and the dog ate them but I still love him make me feel grateful for what I have (reasonable ex's and no dogs)

Lists - the only order I have in my life

Roy Walker - he's Roy Walker

My psychiatrist(s) Dr Price and Dr Medcaff - they know their stuff

My partner - he is very patient, and also a patient himself, it helps, normal partners can make you feel even crazier in comparison to them

My rodents - I use up all my maternal responsibilities on them

Core Arts - my day centre/arts centre whatever you want to call it, being around other people with mental health problems means I can turn my outdoor personna off

The odd bottle of plonk - it's plonk. 

Forensic Radio

This started out as a shower curtain I made but in coincided with an exhibition at Core Arts in East London based on childhood memories and these are hits for the eighties and nineties (my childhood). I went for colour rather than the cool factor which I started to regret as I stood cringing in the corner of the exhibition launch as people studied in detail. Many of the tapes are "mixed tapes" which if made by teenage (he's the one) boyfriends, I used to try and crack love codes in the song titles which didn't exist. Others are when I used to tape the top forty, holding my finger down on pause JUST as Mike Reed started talking over the song - I never forgave him for that until recently,  many of the above records are his, purchased on a record stall in broadway market, rumor had it that Mike Reed went bust and sold his records, but then a jacket on the opposite stall was worn by Kurt Cobain in 1996 even though he died in 1994 - where I'd dance like mad round my six by four bedroom and do "emergency stops" which meant throwing myself on the bed and acting casual when one of my parents came in, like musical chairs for teenagers.


Back in those days, when us girls were thinking of breaking up with our boyfriends, we'd start to tape their records. For some reason they never clocked on. I guess these days we'd start copying their itunes,  but as for being a grown up, the emergency stops still apply, especially when I'm dancing round the living room to the theme tune from catchphrase.

Seesaw Seating plan tip of the month (2)

Stylus broken? Blow the cobwebs of your nanna's sewing machine and slam your foot down on the pedal. Please DO NOT be in when your spouse gets home if using their records.

Sick Notes And Bingo Strips

Not long after I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (I use capitals as it’s had a huge impact on my life, from trips to ASDA to long term relationships) I felt a strong urge to write a back-dated sick note to all those I'd let down since my teenage years; friends, boyfriends, work colleagues, flat-mates, my German teacher, Nana, my gerbil...

My draft went a little something like this.

Dear Sir/Madam/Rodent.

I am sorry that I  (delete as appropriate) never turned up / turned up wasted  - on my first day / spent all your money on tat I binned on the way back / tried to run you over on my push-bike / threw up in your bath - whilst you were in it / wore your wedding dress out - before your wedding / forgot to feed you for three days / trashed the TV because you wouldn't put Catchphrase on / invited twelve strangers back - to live / went to Woolworths for biro's and didn't come back for three days / tried it on with your Dad (This last one was not aimed at either Nana or the gerbil).

I  was in-fact experiencing from a manic episode. It is a medical condition and I'm not the selfish, irresponsible drunk you portrayed me as. Times when I didn't attend for weeks on end to return as though nothing had happened I was in-fact experiencing a depressive episode. 

Shit happens

Yours sincerly

I didn't send it. For a start I couldn't afford stamps, or paper (just reverse bingo slips) as I'd been fired. And dumped, and de-friended.

I was diagnosed in my late twenties because during a nine month stint of sobiety I was still “drunk”. My Dad, also diagnosed with bipolar, heard it’s often hereditary and said I passed it on too him. 

Art V Anti-depressants

Personally I believe all psychiatric drugs should be prescribed by a psychiatrist rather than a GP because a good shrink is more likely to know more about your personal (or personnel) needs - motivational, practical - rather than just whether you have high blood pressure or webbed feet.

Many depression sufferers are artistic. It's a chicken or egg situation - as artists we tend to be perfectionists and prone to feelings of failure which can stimulate depression... when depressed we are more open minded, however negative, and tend to be at our most artistic. There are novelists, musicians and painters dating back to (ahem, I wish I paid more attention at school) a long time ago who back up this theory.

But are anti-depressants a solution for artists?

I met with a musician yesterday. A talented man with proven success and all the frills of fame and fortune. Although he cannot see it. He suffers from acute depression and is currently on a high dose of anti-depressants. He was first put on these after a suicide attempt, however, as his dose has increased over the last two years he has made three more attempts which have landed him in intensive care. He told me that the tablets' side effects mute his love of music, music is his life and he simply cannot face life without music. 

So, we are faced with a choice, mend ourselves with anti-depressants which curbs depression but can numb our artistic passion which in turn can make us depressed again, or mend ourselves with that very artistic passion but continue to be somewhat depressed.

Hmm.. as both artist(ic) and a manic depressive I can see both sides of this argument I seem to have created. My choice, and this is not the answer, was to meet in the middle. I reduced my dose to a safe point where I don't hit rock bottom and can create art sometimes. 

Best of luck if you're ever faced with this decision.