less money, mo’ problems, and other things i shouldn’t tell you

I seem to have changed from being the kind of blogger who writes about stuff she does, like “yesterday I went to the hairdressers, and today I realised just how little I know about HTML” (a recent real-life example!) to one who shapes events into stories and tells them a long, long time after they’ve happened. Which probably flies in the face of what blogging is supposed to be — people blurting out and bleating about their latest news and ishoos and being timely and relevant and stuff. But sometimes you can’t write about what’s happening when it’s happening, and sometimes you don’t want to. Sometimes you do want to, and don’t know if you can.

That might be the most frustrating.

For a while I’ve wanted to admit that (and this is really going to shock you)… my life isn’t perfect. Hasn’t been going that fabulously, even.

But it seems kind of rude to mention it. I don’t like to burst people’s bubbles.

Here's a rainbow. Image: Flickr/Cessna 206

Sometimes people make all kinds of assumptions about me because of some of the places I’ve been published or the fact that I’m kind of private and I don’t like to publicly moan. (OK, maybe not the last thing.) I haven’t yet worked out a polite way to say, “I don’t think I’m having the life experience you think I am.”

Also, I don’t want people to treat me any differently (sometimes I’ve confided certain difficulties to kind people, and they’ve felt obligated to keep checking up on me. Sort of like: “Are things better now?” “How about now?” “And now?” “NOW?” They’re so eager for me to be healthier and happier that I end up saying “Sure. Yep! Fine.” just so we can all relax). And this isn’t the kind of stuff that’s going to be better in a couple of weeks or months.

Still, I think sometimes when you write about horrible things or horrible feelings, people think of you as stuck that way, like you never have a moment of levity, like you aren’t doing small things to change your situation that you may not want to blurt about. Like you need to be sympathised with. Even worse is when you write about your life and people think that what you’re saying is “please send me advice (in ALL CAPS if possible)” when all you’re really saying is “so here’s some stuff that happened”.

And then there’s the fact that, as I keep having to remind myself, I am luckier than 90% of the world because I have food, and a roof over my head, and clothes and the internet, and my mum and dad are the actual BEST. I know a lot of people who don’t have parental support, for various reasons, and I know it’s not something I should ever take for granted. Plus of course there are other people who are much more badly affected by this illness than I am,  and here I am moaning about my horribly wobbly journey to recovery when others are not having a journey to recovery at all. Are lying in darkened rooms unable to speak or eat or move. I should try to be grateful.

But mostly what holds me back is that I’ve read a few people say that you shouldn’t admit weakness as a writer. Shouldn’t talk about how not successful you are, or how little money you make, or how no-one answered your last three pitches. Nothing bad! Ever! Just rainbows and roses and kittens and bathing in gold. Or people will smell the loser on you and you’ll never get your emails answered again. That’s not always bad advice — desperation and moaning and being overly self-deprecating in any kind of public forum is not going to send editors rushing to commission you and may put some of them off you for life.

However, I’ve tended to take that concept too far, as I often do. I’ve thought I can’t tell the truth because it would ruin some “image” that I want people to have of me as this successful and competent freelance writer.  But then I thought: what if I stopped trying to desperately control my own PR, and was just… real?

What if I actually said I’m not having the life experience you may think I am and just let the chips fall where they may?

And I realised that would be a huge relief.

It’s not that I’m doing badly as a writer. Two of the best things ever, career-wise, have happened this year, and there is a definite upward curve, even if progress is slower than I’d like. (Recent quote from a therapist: “Do you think you tend to discount your successes?” Um…)

The problem is I’m not well enough to be a full-time or even particularly active part-time writer right now. And I’ve been feeling like people might look down on me for admitting that. But then I thought of someone I know, who has different disabling problems than I do, who has one or two impressive credits to her name but who doesn’t have the time/energy/health to be published regularly. Do I think less of her because she’s not reviewing for Vanity Fair or settling her throne at The Guardian features desk? Of course not. So why do I assume other people will think badly of me?

Because I’m ashamed of my illness(es), I guess. It feels so personal, and like such a personal failure, and like it makes me inferior to other people because I can’t do the things they can. (I know objectively that makes no sense, but when do feelings ever make objective sense?) When people say “Oh, I didn’t know you had CFS/ME” I take it as a compliment because it’s not what I want to talk about and it’s not how I want to be seen, let alone defined. (Then other people invite me on their hen weekends in London and I’m all, “Don’t they get what a struggle that would be? Jeez!” as if I haven’t hidden my limitations out of embarrassment, shame, and fear of rejection.)

Two years ago, I was trying to further my freelance career, living off caffeine and my credit card and pitching in a frenzy, conducting interviews through the blinding haze of migraine and not sleeping out of panic because I needed money and I needed to prove I could succeed. And I couldn’t blog about how I wasn’t doing well or was too anxious to eat before I did an interview (always a bummer when my first of the day was at 5 PM), because I thought someone might think I was pathetic, untalented, not resilient or god forbid… WEIRD. They wouldn’t understand about my health challenges and would think I was unsuccessful instead. So I pushed and pushed and pushed myself until I collapsed — or my face did, anyway. My body wasn’t far behind.

Last year, I tried to go to university. I thought it would be good because I’d get a guaranteed income (student finance, which was more per year than I’d earned as a freelancer, what with taking time off all that time cos I felt so unwell), and a decently-priced, centrally-located place to live (so I could be independent for the first time in a decade), plus I’d ease my way back into the world in a way that would be much easier to cope with than full-time employment.

Instead, it was a complete disaster, I had the worst relapse I’ve ever known, and I lost hope entirely.

Those experiences did teach me things. Let me know that I actually don’t want to be a full-time student anymore, certainly not with a crowd of 18 year-olds who haven’t heard of the word “halcyon” and have conversations about how 20 is like, so OLD because it’s halfway to OMG 40.

Also, I don’t like full-time freelancing. At least not the way I did it: constantly scrounging for work with no other cash to fall back on, cold-calling contacts, constant rejection, writing about some stuff I have no interest in just to make money. Also I’m way too intense to spend my working life alone. I just want to write the things that save my sanity and compel me to power up my computer. If I need to do other stuff to pay the bills (when I actually feel up to properly working, that is) that’s all right by me.

So I learned about my preferences and goals and grew as a person. Slowly, painfully, and not until I’d been through a lot of angst and got into a lot of debt, but I’m not too quick on the uptake when it comes to life skills. (I keep thinking there should be some kind of class…)

Except dachshunds. And cocktails.

I now understand that my main problem in working out what I should do with myself is that I find it hard to accept where I actually am. That moving to London, finding a job, freelancing, travelling to America on the regular, getting a loyal group of close friends (outside of the internet), having a relationship and deciding once and for all between a basket of kittens, a dachshund, and a baby are not things I can even countenance right now. That instead of going from the thing I thought I wanted to do to the thing I know I want to do, I have to do some stuff I don’t want to do. And I have to do it for a few years. And instead of feeling lucky to have great parents, and a roof, and clothes over my head, I feel occasional moments of hope punctuated by long stretches of self-pity. (I know — SO attractive.)

I feel frustrated, and like my hand is being forced. While I recover my health (at least to some extent) I am not well enough to do much work and I’m also not up to full-time study. So I may as well at least get a qualification at long last and do my degree part-time with the OU, which I think I can manage but which isn’t my dream. I know it’s really bratty to be churlish about it, but I want to stamp my foot and flounce off in a huff about how I was supposed to study in America for a year and get a real in-person degree and other people can and why can’t I and it’s not fair.

I should be glad that I have this opportunity, that they’ll transfer credits from previous study so I can go right into the second year, but as great as the OU’s courses are (and I’ve taken short ones before and can vouch that they are) I don’t feel enormously enthused. I have that “settling for something I don’t passionately want to do” feeling, and I hate it. Eleven years of illness and I’m still stuck on square one.

My mum keeps telling me I’m actually moving forward, I just can’t see it. Maybe if it doesn’t feel painful and fundamentally disappointing then you’re doing it wrong?

Having used up all my overdraft (aka my salary) I have a few weeks ahead of trying to sort out money to live on plus withdrawing from a red-brick university and embracing my future with a digital one (if they’ll even have me, of course). I have some huge forms and stressful appointments ahead, all of which I keep putting off because I’m so anxious, which is probably making me more stressed than just getting on with it, I know.

I keep imagining myself over the next four years — scared to get any better in case funding on the basis of disability (which hello, self, you haven’t even got yet) is taken away, never having another writing achievement I feel excited about, not being able to afford to move out and getting exponentially more frustrated with the fact that I can’t leave the flat alone (the bus stop is too far to walk since they cut one of the local routes, so I’m reliant on my mum to drive me) and the fact that I need help with the most basic of chores in order to even pretend to function. I picture myself slumped at my computer or in front of the TV, too financially-challenged to do anything else even if I felt up to leaving the house and had a way to do it.

I’m optimistic, I guess is what I’m saying. And maybe I’m whiny and self-indulgent (“maybe?”) and maybe I should have waited a decade and shaped all this into something coherent with a happy ending (there will be one by then, RIGHT?) but I think if you’re a blogger you should sometimes make the effort to write about life from the middle, where it feels like one giant mess. So I did.

This is the life experience I’m currently having.

For what it’s worth.