No More.

So I predicted this in a lazy rambling manner in a post a few months back, in August in fact..

".. quite probably the next time my feet touch the ground and everything settles down, it will be into a life that is completely different"

Man, I must know the crazy patterns of my life better than I ever thought. I write this now from my room in a new flat in West Hampstead, on my day off from a new full-time job, with an entirely different head space going on. I'm currently settling in to a new routine, a new flat, a new job and a new life ideally, in which I've decided to clear out all the muck from my regular routine/life/head, and just take care of myself and my life.

The first 2 weeks of October were a bit mental, with going out all the time and packing and moving out, and moving in, and unpacking, and I somehow managed to find a job in the space of 2 days. So starting said job, still only half packed and half moved in, with little/no money and no real idea of how I'd ended up moving house and starting a new job on the same day - this all made October a little hectic to say the least. I then had a bit of a breakdown at work last week and had to be hospitalised with exhaustion, and was poked and prodded even more and generally had the worst day ever - at St. bloody Mary's of course, and had to get Pickled Lily to pick me up and cab me home (against doctor's orders of 2 weeks bed rest).

The main shock to the system about that one was that when doctors were trying to assess how I'd gotten to the level of clinical exhaustion, we went through my daily routine, which while busy and technically stress-packed, wasn't stressing me out enough to keep me up at night, or to drain me that much - and gradually the penny dropped (its taken 22-odd years) that it's all the other bullshit in my life that fucks me up. Everything I've ever done to get by - all the different work, education, moving flats/houses, all of that I deal with as and when, and I'm bloody good at adapting so it doesn't stress my brain and body out. I can look back at any given time in my life and see all the mental work/school/housing related situations and the unbelievable stress levels that went along with them, and conclude that it's that part of my life that makes me so stressed. But I've been fucking wrong. I'm going to write that sentence again because it's rare you'll hear me say it.

I've been fucking wrong.

It's never been moving in and out of places, or having no money, or dropping in and out of education that's worn me out. It's the other bullshit. My mother being one, my friends being another, various lovers and passing men, my own stupid head, meeting the expectations of eeeveryone from my family to strangers to my own insane expectations of myself.. but mainly, it's been everyone else.

I sat in the hospital, feeling uneblievably vulnerable and unbelievably stupid and even more annoyed at myself for taking so long to realise - why do I have these things/people in my life? Why do I always have to do everything for everyone else? Sort everyone elses shit out, everyone elses life problems, money situations, nights out, why do I feel the need to fill the gaps in everyone elses lives and heads, which leave me too drained to deal with my own? I'm such an idiot.

Anyway much more internal ranting and disbelief at my own idiocy and weakness later, I found myself in my new little room with an ill-advised but much-needed glass of wine, after just another appalling day in the hospital, thinking no more. No fucking more.

So I'm going to try and cut everything out of my life that I don't want in it. I'm slightly scared of making too much of a statement about this because of the amount of times throughout my life I've said no more and then fallen straight back into the old routines of trying desperately to please everyone around me - but this is my point, I kind of know I'm a bit too weak willed and a bit too old-habits-die-hard to stop trying to please everyone around me, so I'm left with the option of just making sure the only people around me are those who won't demand anything from me that I don't want to give freely.

Basically, I'm downsizing. Starting afresh as best I can, by stopping trying to change my head, instead trying to change my life and hope my head just adapts. Which it always does. Things in my life go mental so much through the years, so regularly and so abruptly and my head has always just gone with it, dealt with every time my life changes. So it's nothing new really. Except that this time I'm going to be the one that changes it.

Because otherwise I'm going to wake up in 10 years and find myself in the exact same bloody situation, and will probably be surprised. And I don't know why I'm always surprised when this happens.. I've heard it said that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results - so I must be fucking mental.

Ok, enough analysis and enough italics and enough grand statements. I'm just going to note down, very quietly to myself, that taking care of yourself isn't selfish. And so what if it is - everyone's gotta be a little selfish. I don't need to look out for everyone. Just me and mine.

Currently that involves just keeping my head down, not going out because I feel like I should or I owe my friends anything, and just working - my new job has been mildly enlightening in this respect actually. It's been entirely new to me to be in an environment where no-one judges me on anything but my own mind/actions, and respect is given freely when due, and where I'm just another person. No-one's saving grace, or punching bag. It's been a lovely reminder of how I should be treated. Why does it take a perfectly normal working environment to make me realise I don't deserve to be treated like shit? And honestly, when I leave work, even after a 12-hour shift of running to and from offices and bars and making a hundred phonecalls and sending a hundred emails and decorating and carrying shit around and having no lunch break to speak of - I never leave feeling emotionally drained. Physically drained, maybe - but that's not what gets me in a state where I'm in the hospital with exhaustion. One 5-minute conversation with my mother does that bit.

Fuck it, at the risk of making too grand a statement, putting too much pressure on myself, and yet again setting up too high an expectation, I'm just gonna say it and hope for the best - no more.

No more.