You dancing? You asking?

Yes, you’re right, it’s STILL not the exploding midget blog or the ‘time I got locked in a married man’s car boot for 8 hours’ blog.

This blog started off earlier in the week as canny depressing but it’s perked up a bit by the time I came to publish it. I don’t want to be known as TeenyBella, cracking tits, but fucking miserable. I’m not even sure I’ll post it yet but I guess if you’re reading this I did.

I’ve taken a little break from life at the minute. Someone I care a lot about told me I was more broken than anyone else they had ever encountered. Now haway. I know I’m a bit ‘unique’ but really? The only saving grace for me is they didn’t know me four years ago when I was washing my hair with bleach and kissing four strangers in a row.

Anyway, rewind back to the weekend. I was in London. London is busy and big, yet one of my favourite cities in the world. I was even considering moving there. To cut a long story short, some giant cuntflap tried to mug me and threatened me with a broken bottle and a knife. I’m consoling myself with the fact that whilst my favourite ring is gone, my London bus souvenir pencil and 50p clownfish ornament are back in the North East, unscathed. Yes, I know, horrid, no, I know, he should have his hands chopped off, but it was what it was.

Forward to me getting home and basically going a bit nuts. Physically and mentally. And whilst yesterday it had made me sad that I couldn’t leave the house, today it makes me angry that some little shitpacket could have such an impact on my life.

Now, this is the funny bit. I wouldn’t just blog that. Be jesus, that’d be canny boring and depressing. But talking about my OCD and depression when people don’t expect it gives me some (maybe misplaced) feelings that I help people who are hiding or ashamed of mental illness.

Anyhoo..

So there I was, mad as a pan of crabs, attempting to get to Tesco and be brave and buy milk. Easier said than done. I had no bra on, but I had brushed my hair so one was counteracting the other. Picture the scene. Teeny woman shaking like a leaf in Uggs and braless heading from Tesco past Newcastle Crown Court… Whilst at the same time 917349813749879 television cameras chasing Raoul Moat’s brother as he left the court, after trying to make us feel bad for some fucking nut who had shot people and scared people. I swear, I nearly died. I turned and fled, boobs flailing all over the place. Now the only way to stop the anxiety and sweat was to begin my ritual of ‘four’. It’s been ages since I did the four thing. In my bag I had five bags of crisps so I hoyed a packet of Monster Munch straight into the Tyne. Still panicking. Cue opening up each bag of crisps and eating sixteen from each packet. This went on a while. When I’m particularly stressed I also do this weird dance thing with my feet, which if you suffer from OCD is quite cool. People just think you’re shaking what your Mama gave you, and don’t suspect madness, Anyway. I then started dancing and trying to get onto the pavement whilst leaving the road with my left foot last. Only I had to do this sixteen times. Bear with me man, I’m getting back to tying in with the title as all good bloggers do.

So there’s me, dancing in the middle of the road like Irene Cara from Flashdance with saggy tits and PJ bottoms, Raoul Moat’s friends and family smoking Bensons and trying not to set their shellsuits on fire, soggy Monster Munch floating down the Tyne, and suddenly this busker approaches me. He looked like he had been in a fight with a toffee hammer.

“You dancing?” he says.

“Um no, I’m actually stuck” I reply.

And very slowly he grabbed my hand, starts to play ‘Crazy in Love’ and starts to dance with me in the road. People were staring. Even for Newcastle, this was a strange sight. I was that bewildered I forgot all about counting and just danced. For about three minutes, then he kissed my hand and I walked away.

There’s a point to my story. For every cunt there’s an angel. I have no idea if Beyonce the Busker had any clue what he was witnessing but the point is, he knew I was struggling and he helped me. He made me feel much better and helped reaffirm my faith.

Fin.

PS. The court case is yet to conclude. I think Raoul did it though.

 

 

 

Me, Myself and OCD

Firstly, sorry to those of you expecting to read a story about an exploding midget. I skinchie promise that my next blog entry will contain the words ‘small’ and ‘explodes’.

It’s a little bit more serious. People that know me know I don’t really do serious but recently on Twitter I have experienced a lot of you going through a hard time and often get messages telling me they wish they could be carefree like me.

I’m not carefree.

From the age of 6, when I was even teenier, I had OCD. Obviously in the olden days before electric, OCD wasn’t a recognised disease. All I know is every night before bed I’d get up and check  that all of the plugs were switched off and there was no light able to sneak through a chink in the curtains. My parents didn’t understand it. They thought I was just being an annoying brat and made me sleep in the bath. Nowadays I sleep in the bath, but in fairness that’s normally after 54654 pints of cider.

When I was 10 my Dad took me to Walthamstow to watch the dog racing. I always remember he whispered in my ear “you can’t go wrong with number 4″.

Fastforward double top marriage, exploding midget and teenage pregnancy to my early twenties. I couldn’t cope. I went to the Doctors and he actually told me to write down everything which I was compelled to do. And it was only when I made the list I realised how much this horrific disease had restricted my life.

I did everything in fours. It’s perfectly okay to laugh at this next bit.

I could only eat 4 beans at a time. I had to take 4 steps  before I left a room. I had to park my car 4 inches from the path. I could only buy things in 4. I had to keep my eyes shut for 4 whole seconds whilst driving my car down the motorway. You get the idea.

I remember once being in Tesco and trying to buy sausages. I put 4 packets of sausages in my trolley then PANIC. There were 8 sausages in each pack meaning in actual fact I had 32 sausages. This wouldn’t do. A quick calculation told me if I bought another pack I’d have 64, which is a prefect multiple of 4 x 4 x 4. So in went another packet. Only DISASTER. There were 9 in this packet. Odd numbers were becoming involved. By the time I called my Mam to come and rescue me I had 56 packets of sausages in my trolley, totalling 602 sausages. It wasn’t divisble. The world was going to end. I could feed a third world country for a month with sausages. I had a sausage mountain in my trolley.

Another time I went to the dentist. My mind had convinced me I had toothache. I didn’t have toothache. The dentist took my tooth out. But wait. See the flaw? That’s an odd number. So I pretended I had an ache in the other tooth and out came that one too. If you ever meet me in real life, don’t look in my mouth when I smile at you. It’s like a kid has hammered Wrigley’s Extra into my gums.

Fast forward to deep depression, boyfriend leaving me as he was unable to cope and me getting skinny. Aside – how comes you’re only every skinny when you’re mental? I was convinced that if I didn’t perform these rituals every day my son and my parents would die.

Now you and I both know that this is totally irrational. However, my stupid brain didn’t. I went to my GP and apparently as OCD had become a ‘popular’ disease there was a huge waiting list for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The only way you could skip the year long list was if you were suicidal. Was I suicidal? Some days I didn’t want to wake up, some days I wanted my brain to sleep, to not have to count words. Books I think was the worst. Counting words on a page before reading it. Books were no longer my escape. But actual death. I didn’t want that.

I had to pay for treatment as I was going to go nuts. I lost my house, lots of friends, my fiance. Almost my mind.

And this is the point. I am okay. I got better. I didn’t lose my mind. I lost possessions. I lost teeth. I lost my dignity. But I didn’t lose myself. I’m still me. Claire. This is me. This is my heart and no imbalance in my brain can change that or who I am and who loves me. Every day I read about so many of you struggling. My Dad always said to me “tomorrow always comes Claire-a-Bella and the sun always shines”.

Next time you think you’d rather sleep forever, remember that. I’m happy and love being alive. Depression is horrid and nothing to be ashamed of.

And next time you see a teeny woman in a silver car hurling headlong into a lorry, it’s just me, counting to four…….

Teeny World

I was going to write a blog about my friend Dan never having washed his hair for fifteen years, but there wasn’t really much else to say apart from apparently it’s very clean and does not smell. Personally, I don’t fancy it, but each to their own… He also fell in a fire whilst off his chebs on e’s but that’s another story.

So you got this instead.

1 I once pretended to an ex that I had a horse to impress him. I don’t know why on earth I did that. He asked what pets I had and I thought a fish sounded crap. So I said “horse”. We are no longer together.

2 I read about one book a day. I always read the last page of a book first, if it has a sad ending, I bin the book. Why depress yourself even more?

3 I can put both of my legs behind my head, at the same time.

4 I have crashed my car nine times. Once I just forgot to turn.

5 I abseiled off the Baltic. It’s very high. My legs are so short though that I couldn’t reach the wall to do that cool bouncing down thing in a James Bond style-ee. I kind of got lowered down, pathetically.

6 The more drunk I get, the higher my voice gets. After a bottle of wine, only dogs can hear me.

7 I can’t watch any movie rated higher than a “12″. I hate scary movies. Taggart is a no-no for me.

8 I believe in love at first sight. If someone doesn’t make my tummy flip, then I’m not interested. No matter how many times I get shat on, I still believe Richard Gere will rock up in a limo.

9 I once broke my hamsters back by bouncing with it on my trampoline.

10 I am the clumsiest person in the world. On my first date with Mark I dropped a plate of noodles down his settee.

11 I am scared shitless of thunder. I hate it.

12 I got stuck in a Hurricane in Mexico. Category five. It was so scary I honestly thought I was going to die. My room filled with the sea and the windows smashed. Throughout it all, I watched Castaway in Spanish. Weeeeelson…Oh, and my mobile bill was £770. I rang everyone to say goodbye.

13 I also spent £100 on a taxi in Mexico looking for the new Harry Potter book which has just been released, only to find when I started to read it, it was in Spanish

14 I used to have four rats. They all answered to their names and would sit on my shoulder whilst I watched TV. They woke me up in the morning for work. Buttons, my favourite, got cancer. It cost me a fortune

15 I once got married for no other reason than I hit double top on a dart board. A midget exploded at my engagement.

All of the above is true. Welcome to my world. Come on in.