(though not necessarily in that order)

(though not necessarily in that order)

Monday 3 January 2011

Pull yourself together

If someone else said this to me, I would have to stop myself from being very rude to them. However, it is what I am telling myself to do.

So here is the "gentle kick up the backside" which if written somewhere is more likely to happen (written in a very therapy-esque way, I think that it is a remnant from the past):

Issue: Mornings (other than Sunday and Tuesday and Wednesday - church mornings) are spent in bed. Quite frankly, I need the daylight. And still being awake at 3am, thus having seen 10 hours of darkness out of the window (it is completely dark now at 5pm) is just not good.
To change this I need to: Get out of bed by 9am most mornings. Eventually I'll be tired enough to sleep at midnight most nights.


Issue: Eating. Gone haywire. Haywire eating leads to the thoughts of yesteryear coming back, and before I know it, I'm standing in the bathroom wiping my eyes with a damp flannel after making myself sick to try and hide the tell tale signs from those around me. Very much don't want to end up back there, so...
To change this I need to: Stick to meal times. Less absent nibbling on anything and everything. Avoid kitchen cupboard staring, it isn't worth it and never helps the feeling anyway.


Issue: Money. Sheet music is one huge expense, which to be honest I should cease to buy in quite the way I am at the moment. Paying off my university debts needs to be my top priority so I can have a "gap 10 months" without that pressure around.
To change this I need to: Budget better. If my boring minimum amount for being an organist gets directly put into "clearing uni debt" I'll have paid off these courses fees by July. What with the other bits and bobs I have coming in with tutoring, concerts, weddings and the like, I should be able to go to concerts fairly often and buy the occasional bit of sheet music (and hopefully learn more of the huge amount I have already).


Issue: My failing body. I'm getting fairly annoyed/morose about it. Which isn't exactly helping.
To change this I need to: Sort out sleep and eating (see above) as that won't help, keep exercising in the ways I can to keep loosing the weight as that won't help and stop avoiding finding out if there were any problems with the x-rays (i.e. ring the GP and get an appointment, preferably before the painkillers I have in stock run out)


Issue: Currently petrified to start reading around my course subjects for the courses that are soon to start. And petrified about my 3rd year generally, which officially starts Very Soon.
To change this I need to: Tidy my room. Okay, okay, that sounds like I'm wussing out, but seriously my room being a state is not helping the whole "study" thing. Then start reading some essays I've got in my room (note to self: find them when tidying...). THEN, when my course materials turn up in about 15 days time, I shall be able to start without the excuses.


Issue: Being a grumpy sod.
To change this I need to: Stop being a grumpy sod. Oh, hang on, I can hear the voice my ex-psychologist telling me off for that not being quite what we are intending to do. Okay, erm, stop hiding so much, because that just perpetuates the grumpy sod feeling. Oh, and maybe practise smiling away from people so it doesn't look quite so forced. And do the other things in this post, which all relate somehow to the grumpy sod stuff quite a lot.



Then, and probably only then, will I hopefully feel a bit less like I'm living on a bouncy castle and everything is slightly wobbling out of reach. Each thing isn't that difficult to do, and once I'm in the swing of doing them becomes the expected default (instead of this current dysfunctional grumpy sod). So, first things first, 30 minutes of Radio 4 comedy accompanied by room tidying. Then a proper meal...

2 comments:

  1. Ho HO! That old chestnut of "pulling one's self togetherness"...

    Well, I admire you. And you should stick to your steps outlined above. But can you think of any other illness that would sanction us and others telling us to "pull yourself together"? I doubt anyone would dredge up that mantra for the benefit of someone with, say, a broken leg, or diabetes perhaps...

    Do get on with your stuff: sounds good to me. I think what I'm resonating on is that I hope you follow through with being tough but kind to yourself. Rome. Built. Day? Na! Remember when the big metaphorical stick comes out to whack yourself over the head with it.

    I totally agree with your views on debt: nothing worse for mental illness than worries over money. You are a total star for using your measly earnings to pay off your debts. Keep going - it is soooooo worth it!

    I sympathise about the cost of music: I just investigated buying an Eulenburg miniature score for Wagner's Tristan, and found it costs about £35.00 wanking pounds! It's cheaper to keep to a full-size score that uses more paper and ink! What crap is that? Have Eulenburg not heard of the environment? I bet if they dropped their prices (how much does it really costs to print and bind one of those piddly little scores...!) their sales would rocket and we'd save a little more paper and pollution as a result... Twats all.

    Considering I need all the Wagnerian operas on hand, (along with dozens of others) I'll be downloading from Petrucci more often... Thank God for the Wibbly Wobbly Web and things being out of copyright...

    Be kind to you.

    X Clarissa X

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  2. Thanks Clarissa.
    I admit I wouldn't tell someone with a broken leg to pull themselves together. I would, and frequently do with my mother, tell off someone who wasn't taking their medication which is proved to help them (with my mum it is a "don't need the medication, I'm fine" which leads to "seriously unwell" and takes her medication as a remedial effort rather than a preventative one). With this plan, I'm doing the equivalent for me.
    That is stupid about the cost of those teeny tiny scores, especially with the cost of stronger reading glasses added in... I know all too well about the Wibbly Wobbly Web, only problem is the (admittedly tiny in comparison) cost of printing it all out. My printer gets zapped of ink far too quickly, as I find things on Petrucci which are "needed"...

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