The Image of Chaos and Peace

Today definitely deserves a splurge. My goodness it has been absolutely knackering. Somehow, despite waking up all positive and sticking on my music on the way to work (apparently I've picked up my woman power taste in music, go figure) and starting out happy and excitable with my colleagues, today has just decided to try and smush me over. Well in the words of Bianca Del Rio:

So to kick start it, I got invited to join a lovely social group thing on Facebook. "That sounds lovely and positive and nice and fun" I hear you say. Silently..... to your screen. And yes you are correct in thinking that, but it completely threw me out of gear. It has been set up for and predominantly consists of Christ Church Fulwood (CCF) people. So my mind immediately jumps to "why?". Why me? Why them? Immediate assumption was that I was added by accident as the person who set it up clicked through their friends. Nope couldn't be that.

Second reaction is that this is an incredibly elaborate and well coordinated prank to make me look like a fool. I know it's a ridiculous thought but my mind went there. It was a genuine feeling and thought. So that was quickly ruled out and I settled to that they added me because they wanted me to be added.

So I spend the next two to three hours trying to figure out why they could possibly want me to be part of this group. All that I can remember is really being at odds with this group and barely ever feeling welcomed so why all of a sudden would I be "in". Here enters my brains ability to recall every embarrassing, frustrating and awkward memory from my time at CCF. God forbid if I try to remember where I put my keys, somebody's name or when the next PCC meeting is. I can't do that, but I can remember all those awkward memories at the drop of a hat. I think that should be added to my CV, I'll just be two seconds.

Right it's added, right between "can't breathe through left nostril" and "has a distaste for hard foods and loves mixing hot custard with cold ice cream". I think I will patent that final idea actually. So as I was saying, I finally moved past awkward, embarrassing, frustrating memories and moved into a position of acceptance that I was in the group and soon enough people will be  coordinating and organising lovely socials and spending time together. But where do I fit in this? This is where I will use some images to try and explain how my head felt.

This here is a very good representation of my train of thought. I ended up pursuing about twenty different conclusions at the same time. Image and conclusions flying through my head: awkward stuttered conversations, being singled out, sitting by myself, doing something ridiculously embarrassing and bursting into tears, offending someone by accident, snapping at someone because I'm tired or exhausted.

Another good image to compare it with is when spaceships go spiraling off when there engines fail or they get hit. You know the moment it gets hit and the comical and the triumphant moment for the good guys as it goes flying off at x amount of mph into the abyss of nothingness? Yeah that was my train of thought!

This image is a really good reflection of the rest of my brain. Today I had the joy of trying to work with new schemes of work and providing resources for them. This was whilst being informed that I'm too incapable to flick a fuse switch back on by one member of staff and that I have absolutely no right to work independently on the jobs that I have been set by another member of staff! I digress.....

As I struggle to try and recall the names of transition metals, how they work and which practicals work best to display their properties to Y9 students, my main processing power seems to be plugged into "What would you do if you were stood in a room of all these people at CCF and you were completely alone? Remember that feeling, now imagine that one person comes up to you and tries to make a conversation but you completely Jeff it up! Look here is a disappointed face to bring it to life......"

Once again I defer to Bianca del Rio for my response.....to me. FFS!

Look Bianca puts a smile on my face. Eddie Izzard is my hero and RuPaul's Drag Race is my favourite series. Drag queen and female impersonators inspire me. It's probably where my influence to become vicar comes from. You are required by Canon Law to cross-dress every Sunday and each time you lead a formal service! And get paid to do it!

So yes, today has completely frazzled me and I feel like all my neuron pathways (or thought motorways as I like to call them) have been overused and burnt out. This is nothing new to me and I can solidly predict that tonight I am going to sleep like a log. This overthinking business is tiring! There are two final images I would like to finish with.

I like this one for two reasons. Firstly it beautifully depicts how I feel sometimes when my mind is in chaos. My mind never seems to stop, even when I try to rest, which leaves me feeling stupidly jealous of people who don't seem to have this problem. I just want to reach inside my head and rip out my thoughts and cogitations so that I could just stop. I can breathe. Just relax and enjoy the silence. However brief it be. 

The second reason I will leave you to figure out. It shouldn't be too hard (ooer) to figure out. XD

 I do want to note quickly that yes it can be the simplest things that don't seem obvious, nay even contradictory to ones personality, that can lead a person into a place of great distress or worry. I know that I am social. I know that I love people. I can bring to mind hundreds of examples to prove so. I love meeting people. I know that everything will be OK if I go along to these social soirees and gatherings. Yet I have just had chaos today because......

Well I'm not too sure but that simple act of adding me to that group threw me into a major wobbly today so please remember when dealing with people who have mental health issues that it may not make sense and it may not be obvious, rational, sensible or even reasonable but the simplest thing can throw us out. Most of the time we don't know why the hell it has but all we know is that it simply has. If we could make it stop we would love to but we can't so please in these moments hold us gently. Love us and reassure us. And please, please, please be patient. We're not particularly tolerant of ourselves so you have to be our patience for a time. It may be inconvenient to you but just remember how inconvenient it is to us. Hint: it's bloody inconvenient!

The final image to use is the one that is the cover for my Blog. There is one little reprieve that I occasionally get it. In my life when the simplest thing, such as adding me to a social group on Facebook (despite knowing that I am incredibly social and I love people and meeting them), can throw me into a nervous and anxious wobbly there is a quiet joy to be found in the moments where peace is found. It doesn't happen every time but it is two distinct activities that this Peace has always been in: the Breaking of Bread and Prayer. Never when I set up this Blog did I expect a) to have these mental health (or there within lack of) issues or b) that this picture would mean so much to me. It reminds me that in the madness and chaos there is a light, a brief reprise. A perfect, present peace.

In other news: (I might make this a thing!) I sat on the toilet at church and the seat broke under me. Thanks! I've finally managed to actually gain weight for the first time in my life (I've been stuck at 8st since the age of 14) and the world tells me "ooh you're getting big!". Hahahaha, it's bought a smile to a great many people.

Blessings,

Ed out.

Feeling Bloggy, but in the good way!

Apparently I have missed several months of blogging again. It's been a very busy few months and I'm not going to get upset with myself for having not blogged. It's just something that has happened. However I have just felt an urge to blog again. I know what has triggered it but in this  post I think I want to talk about three different things that have triggered it.

Firstly I would like to talk about the main reason I feel the urge to go back to blogging. It is currently a year ago that I started my application process to join the Army Reserves. This has bought up a couple of emotions within me that have been tugging me around a bit. However I would like to note that at no point in time have I felt that i made the wrong choice or that I would like to go back on the decision I made. That is a massive step for me. I would like to acknowledge that the main emotions are disappointment and frustration. I am disappointed that I had to withdraw from the Army Reserves as I had huge potential in my capacity within 4 Yorks,I felt at home incredibly quickly within 4 Yorks and I truly saw it as an honourable role that I was fulfilling. I feel frustrated because I perceived it as a step into another career, that I found fulfilling and enjoyable. Yet I would like to reiterate that at no point have I come to the conclusion that I made the wrong choice nor would I feel the need to reverse that decision. Also the experience and growth that came out of those very few weeks that I was there are invaluable.

The second point is something that comes out of the first but also applies across my general life. I have been rather inwardly depreciating due to the fact that I had to resign the Army Reserves. I am not being upset with myself but I am certain, in my mind, that people have dismissed my Army Reserves experience as me running after something and then giving up again. I know myself enough that I come across as fickle, irregular and maybe even capricious. However I also know myself well enough that I am just incredibly passionate and excitable and there is a lot of things in this world that I care a lot about. In my mind I just feel that people are dismissing me and my passions because of how erratic I can be so people just laugh at me and my actions/ decisions. This is something that spreads across my entire life. I am incredibly overly analytical, to the point where I will analyse conversations, texts, actions or there within lack of (of all the aforementioned items!) that people do (or nor do). This can completely cripple my reciprocated actions, conversations and relationships. I just have an amazing gift of mind reading apparently(!).

Which leads to my third and final point: to a certain extent I don't look or act like a person who has anxiety or depression. That is because it is people based, or technically it is the absence of people that triggers. I am incredibly tactile and emotional (which I hope should be evident enough throughout all these blogs, if not here it is written out) so when people don't nourish or activate that part of me I end up obsessing over possible reasons as to why they don't, or more technically don't want to. This is why very few people know or see my depression and anxiety, it's because I don't want people to see or know it. I know that seems incredulous due to the fact that I am blogging on the World Wide Web about this, but that is because here is where I can put out there what I am feeling and experiencing without fear of immediate repercussions or reprisals. It lowers the whole anxiety wrapped around talking about this.

The main reason I don't talk to people about it or let people know is pure and simple: I am terrified of people verifying my irrational and illogical conclusions. I am so terrified of it that I wouldn't even risk people verifying it. Fortunately the part of my brain that IS rational and knows better has the upper hand a lot of the time at the moment so I can face these thoughts and tackle them head on.

So that is why I have returned to blogging. I can see that most of my rise in anxiety and low mood has been triggered by these reminders of the Army Reserves but this has helped me spread it out before me and identify how to combat this more efficiently. I just need to face the thoughts at the start and acknowledge they have no power over my decisions or my life. Face them and speak the truth to them.

Much better. :)

In other news: I have a bit of a secret. Once again ridiculous because this is on the Internet, but very few people visit and I haven't publicized this to my friends (that I'm aware of!). Ah well. Anyway; I am planning to take up pole dancing in the New Year. I was inspired when I took my brother and his girlfriend to visit a potential University. We went into the social area and there was the University's pole dancing team. There were men doing it and they were really good at it. So i thought "hey I would love to do that" and I have thought about it and considered it for a couple of months. I still want to do it. Not for sexy-ness or to strip or anything, but to dance to music in a beautiful mixture of masculinity and femininity, build up fitness and to just have some fun doing something different. I haven't told anyone but Liz my intentions mainly because of point two. I have decided to keep things in my mind and on paper until I have made quite a few active steps towards achieving these before telling people of my intentions or actions. I can't risk looking like a spanner in front of people and having another "erratic" or "variable" activity or intention again. However there is also a second reason and it is scientifically based. When we tell people of our intentions to do something positive and receive praise our brain releases the same chemical that we receive when we complete a positive activity and receive praise. So technically what happens is we stump ourselves and, admittedly inadvertently, dupe our brain into thinking that we have completed that positive task at hand. This negatively reinforces our brain to now want to actually do the activity. Why should we do it? We have already received praise for it? So there is a bit of Science for you. Hope you find it useful.

And now my secret is yours too. 

Until next time.....