Excuse me?

Sometimes it's the little things. Unfortunately I don't have a two week Caribbean cruise to look forward to at the end of the month. (I am a liability around water especially with a glass of anything in my hand) but I do have Homelands to look forward to on the box every Sunday night. I'm usually the one that misses out on what everyone's watching, I missed a whole series of Downtown Abbey which meant I couldn't join in a conversation in an office or pub for eight weeks and Footballers Wives I was discovered so late I had to cram in five series' into a long weekend, by the end of it I found myself wandering round Lidl in my funeral/pulling dress, six inch heels and cramp.

So, Homelands, I'm in the loop. US drama about terrorism, yes it's miles apart from my usual Confessions Of A Pet Hoarder or Embarrassing Bodies but now I'm socially accepted. The main character is also called Carrie, and like myself suffers from Bipolar, and is also on lithium. She plays the part well. This IS going somewhere.

In the meantime, a friend of mine comes over on a Monday morning to help me plan my week. She's not my PA, or CPN (community practice nurse) but somewhere in between, and she has dull taste in biscuits so she's cost effective.

She helps me fill my diary otherwise I'm stuck with things like Wednesday, re-write the bible as a musical, Wednesday PM cure hepatitis. It's the change of season and I've noticed some of my bipolar colleagues have been getting manic, myself included, and left unsupervised my diary starts to look like listed coding.

I taped Sundays' Homelands so my diary friend and I could watch it together on Monday over tea and crap biscuits. As we watch it, my poor friend not only has me, receptively asking her questions (I didn't see the first series) but on the screen another Carrie with bipolar is receptively asking questions (she works for the CIA).

From stuff I've read by other bipolar bears, Carrie Fisher included (another Carrie), we do tend to ask a lot of questions, often at inappropriate times. I once woke a boyfriend up at 4am to ask if he liked ghost trains. Another time at 5.30am with brushes and paint because I wanted to learn to paint NOW. A dear friend of mine's husband left her and my sympathy was much needed but all I was coming out with was the need to know the dimensions of the place he had moved into and the distance to and from his job.

Excitement, rush, impulse, anxiety, mania, inquisitive, instability... no idea why we do it. We just do.

I'm starting to think it would be easier for everyone else if I just booked that bloody Caribbean cruise after all...

"Sorry it's late notice but..."

...I'm not coming"

Both instability and inconsistency of mood makes it very hard to make and stick to plans. I can just about cope with making plans for the same day, because I know where I am, but future plans be it in a months time, a weeks time or even the next day... oh no. 

Friends and family have come to the end of their tether over the years, with me canceling at the last minute, in fact the other day my friend said I cancel exactly an hour before hand, on the dot. I've cancelled on countless occasions, big occasions, last year I didn't even make one of my best friend's wedding, and I was her bridesmaid!

I can only imagine what people think. Especially when it's I, who enthusiastically plans something, invites everyone, and doesn't show. They probably think I'm flakey, or that I got a better offer, or that I can't be bothered.. reality is I'm often sat at home in the same pile of dirt as the day before, under a heavy black cloud, pulling out sweaty chunks of hair, calling myself every name under the sun (including flakey) and telling myself "Why don't you just go?" and ever time I try and move from my dead weight I'm reminded of the paralysis.

Or, I'm pacing up and down the hallway, slap and hat on, and every time I try and turn my key in the door my hands are shaking so much I hear Jingle Bells. This is where I'm being beaten up by paranoia. I've already decided that people are going to humiliate me as I walk in, and that the sound of everyone laughing is like thunder and as lightening strikes the inside of my head will light up and everyone will see what I'm having to cope with.

In my earlier years, as in, non-diagnosed so not medicated, I once didn't go out because I thought I was famous and that I'd get hounded like hungry dogs to a bare bone. This was BEFORE I discovered non-prescription drugs by the way, I'm aware of the similarity in grandiosity.

So, few friends have caught on that I can't make plans. Don't get me wrong, in a stable place, it's doable, sometimes, but the majority of my social life is based either in my house, or on the spur of the moment. So, if you're getting married, forget sending me an invitation, just text me in the morning "getting married at midday" and I'll more than likely be there!

Ironically I was going to write a piece about how much fun I had at Mecca Bingo the other night (after I cancelled, twice) but this slipped out. I must remember not to send this link to the Mecca facebook page as promised. 

Recovering From Addiction

I interviewed Tom Huber for one of my magazines, he's a recovering addict, addicted to pretty much everything, and now he's a counsellor specializing in addiction.

So why did I choose Tom? I mean, I'm surrounded by addicts, why him?

Because of his magnetic positive attitude and witty sense of humour. He is the perfect advocate for people who think that giving up alcohol or drugs means giving up your personality too. 

I met him during a visit to Focus12, recovery home to Russell Brand, Davina McColl and Boy George, and also one of my best friends/ex partner (yes, we're one of those weird ones) Nail. He told me "Being a part of someone getting clean is better than heroin" How many people can say that about their job?

Here's the article..

http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/addiction/drug-addiction/recovering-from-addiction.html

My Sick Bowls' Well Better Than Yours

Teens on busses. I try my hardest to avoid East London busses between three and four in the afternoon because this seems to be when screaming teens seem to be at their most hormonal. They pile on busses in clusters of about eight and give everyone on the bus tinnitus. But when boys get on a few stops down the line they get even louder. I try and imagine the soft voice of David Attenborough explaining to me it's all part of the natural mating process but it's flooded by a high tempo argument about who's phones better than who's.

It makes me wonder what we used to argue about when we were that age, a time where there was no such thing as an “aye” phone. Someone defaced my Guess Who game. And someone else accused me of stealing her tights. Then someone fell out with me because a boy she fancied asked me out and even though I said no she still picked on me for the rest of my life.

I was always an easy target because I was rubbish at arguing back. The words would get jumbled up as I tried to say them which gave them even more to play with. As a cry for help I soldered scissors together in woodwork class but no one noticed, read extracts from my stories about drugs, prostitution and suicide in English class but no one even listened, and then I bunked off for nearly six weeks and still no one noticed, except the dinner lady because I still owed her for a doughnut.

Around aged ten when we all started smoking, which we did wearing hideously eighties make up, I was still in nappies at night-time (nervous child) which was very weird.. fags check, make up check, nappy... sounds like something from a beauty pageant contest... it wasn't. I wore a brace that went all the way around my head, pressing against my chubby cheeks, a tight perm, and big Sue Pollard glasses covering my whole face.

Back to the teens on the busses, talking about how “mash up” they're gonna get later. Oh the glamour of getting so intoxicated they'll be spending the following day over a bowl, trying to remember who said what to who and who's no longer speaking to who. Crawling to the pound shop for a pregnancy test to do in the bogs of Macky Dee's. “I'm gonna get way more mashed that you” surely they may as well be saying “My sick bowl's well better than yours”

Will there ever be a time, when we'll hear kids on busses say things in reverse like “I'm gonna get proper balanced this weekend.. I'm gonna eat a well balanced diet and get a well early night”  

Knitting Cakes In Crack Dens

I can't stop knitting cakes. I spend many evenings and weekends alone constructing doughnuts out of wool, sprinkling glitter dust on French fancies and tying ribbon around Swiss rolls.

I've used up all the recording space on Sky + because I'm banned from watching my murder programs on my own I have to record them. I've even had to wipe all my episodes of Embarrassing Bodies and Animal Hoarders to make room for something I'm not allowed to watch.

My guinea pigs are happy I have something else to obsess about, the more time I spend knitting the less time my face is pressed up against their cage staring weirdly at them breathing cherryade (which is the new cava) onto them.

Knitting keeps me out of trouble. I initially taught myself to knit when I gave up smoking, and then accidently started a craft business. It gives me a distracting focus even though I can zone in and out of thoughts at the same time. I think it's marvelous for sufferers of both OCD and anxiety, as well as those recovering from addiction. I can't imagine myself back in a crack den chasing the dragon whilst darning pom poms onto tea cozies somehow.

Recent projects and exhibitions involve knitted toilet roll dolls (with action men), cakes (even a full size wedding cake), and 80's memorabilia (rubix cube).

In East London it's considered cool to knit but I haven't joined any clubs like Stitch n' Bitch because I'm terrified of new people and talk too much as a result which in turn irritates them.

If ten years ago somebody told me that one day I'd give up, late nights, drugs, “frequent encounters with the opposite sex” swinging round the pole on the back of a London bus, and throwing up in bins. for knitting, I would've told them it's rude to spread lies.

Maybe it's age, maybe it's lithium, maybe it's both or neither, but I think everyone should try it. Ironically many pharmacies sell wool..

“I need something for tinnitus - the Hokey Cokey's been in my head on full volume for nearly a week now”

“Take this eight ply yarn, a set of four millimeter needles, follow the instructions in your head and you'll have a nice long scarf within two weeks”

Coat on

Buttoned up

I'm off

xx

Now The Olympic Is Over We Can All Ignore Each Again

Now the main games are over, the general public of London commuters seem to be back to their old selves - if a stranger speaks to them on the Tube they pretend they don't hear for being engrossed in their book. 

During this time people seemed genuinely nicer to each other, whether they were on their way to see the games or on their way to work. Shop staff were friendlier, transport staff were more helpful and the general public had a sense of pride about themselves, not in the smug sense but in unity. This seemed more evident in clusters, like on busy tubes or trains, platforms and queues, and even in long queues people, even me, moaned less. Volunteers were singing silly made up songs into their megaphones, there was a refreshing amusing attitude that would raise eyebrows and spit tuts any other time but now.

As with the World Cup, strangers world-wide can make conversation because we all have one thing in common, even though they may come across as worlds apart. 

I don't usually use the "C" word but I couldn't help myself lap up the community spirit and that bonding sense of belonging -  I personally belong to a minority group, I'm one of those people who talk to strangers on tubes and get ignored in exchange for <em>The Da Vinci Code</em> - and my friend and I have even been pumping the tyres of a tandem, decorated the basket with red white and blue flowers, flags and bunting, ready to parade along the canals of East London to mark the completion of a once in our lifetime event. If you see us, stop, we have treats!

Admittedly I'm no sport enthusiast, in fact I couldn't be less enthusiastic, but living so close to the Olympic Park- in fact my car park and balcony were in use by friends and family eager to get to the site in twenty minutes door to door or photograph the fabulous fireworks displays - I was surrounded by Olympic Mania the minute I left my home to the minute I arrived back. It was like living in a giant Camper-van at a music festival.

Stratfords Westfield Centre is my local shopping centre, and during very hectic shopping trips I found myself getting excited and borderline emotional every time I saw someone in a shell suit, until the realization hit me that I was after all in Stratford and that wasn't uncommon at all.

I was fortunate enough to get tickets into the stadium on the last day of the main games, 

The very firs thing that came into my head when I walked into the Olympic Park was that it seemed like a very clean Glastonbury Festival. It had the crowds, diversity and friendliness but not the litter, perfume de portaloo or the mud.

I was surprised to see such casual attire, I had no idea what people were wearing to the Olympics as the only people I'd observed in full attire on TV were athletes and Kate Middleton, so formal dress of my nations' colours, red heels and royal blue fascinator hat it was... and of course everyone else is in comfy lights and trainers. 

I even saw the very last game from the front row, and witnessed a world record, things I'll never experience again in my lifetime. However I can't tell you what either of these were, I was buzzing from the experience as a whole, scanning the crowds, listening to a medley of languages and playing less attention to the games. Besides, there were three games running at any one time and I didn't know where to direct my focus - a bit like Sunday lunch arriving whilst you're starving and you don't know what to dig into first - not saying the Olympics is an exciting as Sunday lunch of course, merely just a rubbish metaphor. 

From someone with no interest in sport I was certainly easily excited and only stopped cheering to breath. I even clapped and whistled at volunteers as they entered the track with buckets.

And of course I got to see the winners and runners up be presented with their Jim'll Fix It badges, as we stood and pretended to know the words to their national anthem. 

And finally, speaking of singing, describing what I'd seen to friends was a bit like singing The 12 Days Of Christmas there were eight poles vaulting, seven ladies running, six hammer throwing, five gold rings..

Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait another three years, eleven months and two weeks before we start being nice to people we don't know again.

For the Huffington Post version of this, click here.. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kerry-hudson/now-we-can-start-ignoring-each-other-again-post-olympics_b_1817759.html

‎"People with bipolar disorders are dangerous serial killers" Anyone fancy a picnic in the woods?

Just thoughts I'd share this little lady's post on the popular misconceptions of bipolar ..

http://catthebeatnik.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/common-misconceptions-about-people-with-bipolar-disorder/