Analyse

I am quite departed from a 'rational' reality and the world I am experiencing is inexplicable. Anything I say will make no sense to anyone for I am experiencing a different level of consciousness which is quite terrifying. Life is a perpetual 'bad trip' in which everything is heightened, but to an excruciating, as oppose to a fascinating degree. Here is my painstaking attempt of extracting some of the thoughts which, in their relentless chaos, are rarely within the means of articulation. Much of my mind cannot be spoken. None of what I have managed to abstractly express will make sense to the greater part of humanity, for those objective outsiders are grounded, and in being grounded are blind to the higher meaning invested in all things. 

Everything has meaning.

Everything has reason.

Everything is precious.

Everything must be perfect, in its optimum state, at all times. Harmony can only exist when every element conforms to these conditions.

There are countless consequences to any given situation; thus every circumstance, minute by minute, requires the most deliberate calculation and analysis in order to ensure that the best possible outcome prevails. The best outcome equals precision of meaning, conservation of value and providence of time. Any time not achieving something is waste - pure and selfish waste; and a void in which the torment of my own thoughts becomes intolerable.

I must be prepared for every possibility of every circumstance. If I am not prepared then everything will fall apart. The perpetual sense of urgency is excruciating - if there is one moment during which I am left without distraction from the cacophony inside my skull then I have no hope. The thoughts are worsening. I cannot counteract my thoughts alone.

Everything must be justified in relation to others.

Every action must be determined with respect to its effect on others.

Spending money on myself is only allowed if ultimately to serve the purpose of others.

Sitting is only allowed if enforced, or in a context where social company would necessitate it.

Calorie consumption is only allowed if compulsory.

Independent calorie consumption can only be justified if minus.

I must present the best version of myself at all times in order to be a positive example to others.

I must appear strong.

I must appear optimistic.

I must appear colourful.

This requires excruciating effort to suppress a torturous level of psychological turmoil; and isolation to preserve the welfare of others.

I must protect others from my despair in order that they can find hope.

The true extent of my internal distress would be intolerable for others, and also leave me more alone than ever.

If anyone were to know how I am inside then they would leave me. 

I must cause as little disturbance as possible.

I must be as least burdensome as possible.

I must not disrupt the existential balance.

I must not be seen in the same outfit more than once.

I must not wear the same combination of jewellery more than once. 

Every colour is symbolic.

Every shape is symbolic.

Every form is symbolic.

Every manifestation must also present a sentimental value - meaninglessness is wasteful.

Certain colours have certain moods which I must harness in order to try to influence my own and therefore the wellbeing of others. 

Everything must be an accurate and harmonious reflection of other things. 

Music must be complimentary to circumstance or mood and music must be all the time because silence is space for thoughts. 

Scent is determined by the various conditions of every circumstance.

Everything has reason and requires calculation. 

Substances are most effective on an empty stomach.

I must be as empty as possible at all times in order to gain the best 'escape'.

A cigarette is best when my system is as empty as possible. This entails rationing, and constant calculation of time, with the longest time, and the most physical activity as possible between each cigarette to gain the greatest 'hit' and escape from feeling 'real'. 

All tobacco scraps must be collected in case of running out of money or time. 

Everything must be saved in case.

I must never smell unpleasant in case others are upset. 

Teeth must be cleaned after every cigarette.

Teeth must be cleaned before eating to prepare the palette.

Teeth must be cleaned after eating to expunge any residual calories.

I must use the toilet immediately before every meal in case of needing it after, in which case I would have to request being accompanied to protect me from my own compulsions. Being accompanied would be a burden and I would be ashamed for needing support. 

I must remove any opportunity of hiding food in hair, pockets or sleeves as opportunity for escape is impossible to abstain from. 

I must make every effort to avoid calories without breaking the rules set by others.

I must hide my distress at the meal table as much as possible.

I am always ashamed. I am guilty for being ill. 

Food equals calories. Calories equals weight. Weight equals more of me, who I cannot tolerate.

Consumption is torture and I am ashamed of myself for finding it so.

My bedroom must be perfect at all times and a sanctuary of safety.

Order equals safety.

Cleanliness equals safety.

Comfort equals safety.

Certainty equals safety.

Symmetry equals safety.

Aestheticism equals safety.

Everything must maintain its optimum state at all times in case of being perceived by others. 

Everything must remain as safe as possible at all times in order to alleviate my own anxiety and therefore protect others from the negative impact of my distress.

Rest is wasteful and selfish. 

Any time spent doing nothing is a waste - there are only so many hours to use.

Every minute must be spent achieving.

Any moment of stillness is a moment that could be spent burning calories.

Any moment of idleness is a moment that could be spent being productive - creating, for others.

Sleep is terrifying. 

Sleep equals lack of productivity.

Sleep equals lack of activity.

Sleep is a place where the thoughts I have dampened with obsession will catch up with me and leave me in terror.

Sleeping more than 4 hours equals a bad day to follow. 

Honesty is crucial. Any falsehood is injustice.

I must never lie. Better to say nothing than to tell a lie.

Every moment must be filled with as much activity as possible in case there is no time, or no money, or no energy at a later point.

Everything must be considered with regards to the 'just in case' principle. 

Everything of value must be cherished and memorialised. 

Every moment must be captured to remind of its occurrence and its possibility.

I must take pieces of life and people with me to remind me of who I am.  

If a thought or a feeling or an event is not captured or expressed then it will be lost. 

Loss equals suffering.

Solitude is unsafe.

Solitude is where I am alone with my thoughts and I am doomed to succumb to the voices.

I must be constantly active.

Sitting down is not allowed, for no-one is telling me to.

I must be constantly stimulated with evidence of human contact to save me from being alone with my mind, which is a very frightening thing.

Solitude is terrifying.

Human contact is terrifying given that I may negatively impact others.

I must protect others at all times. 

It is when I am alone that I become overwhelmed.

Sometimes only mindless, meaningless tasks are achievable in solitude in the context of the torment of 'bad' thoughts.

I can only focus on one task in company.

In solitude the oppressive detail and pressure of rules is overwhelming and I lose myself.

There are many rules and routines that I cannot put to words because they are so constant and racing and many so obscure that they become incomprehensible. Fighting the thoughts for others is exhausting, but maintaining peace by keeping to the rules is exhausting.

Everything must be done in a specific order.

Components must consist of sets of three.

Three is a trinity.

Three is fulfils the rules of aestheticism.

Three is magic.

Routines must be completed in multiples of five.

Multiples of five are symmetrical figures: round and whole - nought is certain, five is exactly halfway between nought and ten, ten is optimum. Symmetry, or balance are crucial. Everything is calculated.

Calories must be consumed in order of calories in case some tragedy prevents completion of the meal - in which case only the lowest substance would have been consumed. 

Bubbles in hot drinks must be consumed before liquid as air is the lighter substance.

I must always choose the best possible version of everything. 

This requires calculation of every value - time, financial worth, symbolism, quality, quantity.

I must always choose the option lowest in calories for myself.

When giving, the best version must be saved for others.

Everything must be completed fully and executed perfectly. If one thing is not entirely complete or perfect then everything will start to slip. 

If I am not exactly prepared at the start of every day then the whole day will be a disaster.

If my day is not exactly prepared, filled and  accomplished then it has been a waste.

I must be constantly distracted from myself because I cannot bear myself. Every action is an effort to escape my intolerable reality.

Everything is overwhelming. 

The excruciating detail of all things is terrifying and I cannot stop noticing everything. 

Being alone is where I become overwhelmed and my head travels to another place where I don't know where I am.

I cannot cope with reality, with myself - my brain escapes somewhere completely detached from the present moment and I am no longer in my body.

I cannot remember what happened before or what is to come and nothing makes sense.

Everything is surreal and I am not sure what is going on or where I am. 

I am constantly disorientated. 

I am living on a time limit and everything must be done all at once.

Nothing I do is ever enough.

There will always be something I could have done more or better.

I must help everyone suffering.

Everyone else and everything else must come before myself. 

The suffering is growing heavier by the day.

The Burdens

I wrote an abridged list of my miseries - forgive the total lack of eloquence as well as the many things I omitted - in the hope that the cathartic process of their expression will give clearance for brighter things to grow. It's time to burn this all and start a fresh tomorrow for the very last time. 

I have no place to call home and sofa-surfing is incredibly draining and demoralising 

I am a problem - I'm a burden to anyone and everyone I spend any length of time around given that I can't control my emotions or my eating disordered behaviours and I'm tired of making everyone's lives a misery as well as my own

I don't have the money to find my own place and the services can't work quickly enough 

This has quite possibly been the worst half term of all time - I spent my Halloween trekking around Sussex for six hours looking for somewhere to spend the night instead of having a good time with my friends or family

I don't feel supported or cared for anymore; not even by my own mother who I had thought I could depend on. Even though I forgive her I cannot forget the hurtful things she has said and done. I cannot shake the feelings of betrayal, and for her now to deny moral support in me finding somewhere else to stay is only making me feel more alone than ever. I didn't watch her spend years in a severely unhappy relationship with my Dad and learn nothing - there is no denying that we need time and space from each other before the situation deteriorates any more. Right now it is only a ticking time bomb before another dangerous situation explodes between us when I feel suicidal whenever I am in the house

I don't want to be sad anymore but I don't know how to be happy

I can't find peace anywhere

I am ugly and fat - I'm not even thin enough to be deserving of pity

I can't seem to do any work for sixth form as I'm overwhelmed by misery and anxiety at my situation

My bedroom is a mess

I can't sleep without having horrible nightmares - when I slept last I dreamt that I was being raped and no-one would help me and then that someone attacking me leapt onto my back and I didn't have the strength to shake them off

I'm exhausted by the constant battle against food, against fear, against sadness, against anger; against myself

I feel physically terrible - I'm tired of feeling like shit 99% of the time and being under the weather with a cold coming on doesn't help AT all

I'm worried about my brother Tristan as I know he is struggling mentally but there seems very little I can do to help him

Every effort I make to help others is never enough - if I make breakfast in bed for my Mum, babysit my brothers and cook them dinner, get myself to work without troubling anyone for a lift to save me struggling all the way to the station… it is only appreciated for the briefest of moments before I get shit for something else

I'm tired of being spoken about so negatively behind my back by members of my own family and I'm sure thought of negatively all the time

I'm horrifically worried about the ELAT test on Wednesday as I'm the least prepared I've ever been for any test in my life. I gave one of the books from Oxford University I could have used to revise from to a patient at my last unit to read and I think she has died which makes me more miserable than you can imagine and also means that there is no chance of me getting it back

I feel like I am letting everyone down by failing to reply to messages or letters in good time but I don't want to respond when I'm in such a bad place when I desperately wish to be a positive influence to others

It makes me bitterly sad to see all my friends getting on with their lives - my sixth form friends now flourishing at university, many of those I know from various inpatient units now recovering from their conditions and loving life again - all whilst I remain stuck

I miss my friends more than I can say

I can't forget the things I have seen: E being brutally force-fed as I cried and girls screamed and tried to escape; L slitting her wrists with my paint tile that I had left on the table and seeing the blood that drenched her bedroom floor; T vomiting in the washing machine before she was restrained and injected in her room where she screamed 'rape' for hours on end; walking past the isolated ward on the AMU a few days following my worst overdose and seeing a lady being resuscitated after a heart attack, then returning after my cigarette for her to be gone...

I can't forget the things that I've experienced: being taken advantage of by a guy I didn't know when I was paralytically drunk those years ago; having the naso-gastric tube inserted up my nose and into my stomach to be sedated and drip-fed constantly for three weeks; watching my life slur by in strange dream-like scenes as my present senses began to diminish and vitality faded whilst I was at A&E during my physical worst; being conspired against by mental health professionals when they assessed me for sectioning without my knowledge before admitting me to an institution that has left me permanently traumatized; being screamed and spat at by a woman suffering from severe Anorexia herself and told I was a selfish cow who didn't deserve to be here; being rushed off in an ambulance after my fourth major overdose, impaled with needles and wires as the sirens screamed; having my own mother grip my wrists nearly to breaking point before we fought so viciously until she called the police…

No-one understands how I feel

I want everything to go away but I'm judged for any means of escapism that I resort to

I don't know where to go or who to turn to

I miss my boyfriend and I am ashamed to see him tomorrow when I don't deserve him and he doesn't deserve to be burdened with me. I am terrified that I will lose him for I know I will not survive that loss

Lou Reed is dead

Your Life

I feel in an incredibly good and an incredibly bad place all at the same time. Is that possible?

I could never have imagined when lying upon those stiff hospital sheets in the acute medical unit - struggling to breathe or even move besides being sporadically overwhelmed by waves of intense nausea after my fourth and worst overdose - that I would be sitting in a bar in a campsite in France on a family holiday, as emotionally settled as I have been in recent weeks. 

I may well have suffered a gut full of despair over the latter weeks but I have certainly been enlightened with some pearls of wisdom and my God it has left me with good vibes. I don't know how long they can last and of course there are often moments of distress but it truly feels like I am finally on the cusp of something new; I have discovered a state which is quite refreshing, quite inexplicable - euphoric.

I suppose that in a sense it is interesting, given that the majority of people preach that recovery equals true happiness. Perhaps the existence that I'm experiencing now is purely delusional, but it's surely an improvement from the utter despair that I knew previously. It would be hard to define particularly what has changed since then, besides the fact that I have allowed quite completely for my impulsivity and mania to take over when they have arisen and not given much regard for the consequences - unwise, perhaps: but exciting, most definitely. It feels like in meeting the new people that I have that I have gained insights that they have renewed me both physically and psychologically. 

Perhaps my present elation is a counterpart to my physical decline which I cannot deny has its downsides too - losing feeling in my limbs and face as well as uncontrollable bouts of shaking can be embarrassing at the best of times - but then there is that twisted gratification rendered by the effects of emaciation. 

It's hard to believe that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was close to death. I wouldn't say I feel higher than ever now, but then that would be a precarious position for me to be in for heights of mania only lead to crushing falls. Contentedness is truly quite blissful. The calm after a tempestuous storm. 

For once I am proud of myself too. I can take every day as a victory. I made it through the toughest heart break I have ever suffered, one that I could never have contemplated surviving. Nothing is easy, of course not: I'm still hurting to this day and I still suffer but it feels like I'm in a new process of learning that dwelling on the very many things I have to be miserable about won't change them and certainly will not help them - so the best way, not the easiest way it goes without saying, to go about dealing with them is to try to move on from them. Taking the positive from the negative may sound trite but it honestly is a practice worth preaching.  

Watching life flash before my eyes primarily as I was being transported into the ambulance before being impaled by various sharp objects amidst a cacophony of screaming sirens and then secondly, far more temperately, when accompanying my friends - purely as a means of moral support - whilst they received their A level results to determine their university choices. It was a surreal and largely unpleasant experience on both counts; feeling an immense sense of waste and purposelessness, lack of power to resolve my fate. I was told however by somebody I later became, quite suddenly, very close to, something that though of course I had heard many a time before really struck a chord with the circumstances which I have just recounted: that life goes on. No matter how much it feels like you have frittered away your years, there are many more to come. You can use them precisely in the way you choose, whether that would mean wasting them some more, or fulfilling them with joy and love and accomplishment. 

Taking life too seriously is a dangerous business, and living a little on the wild side has certainly paid off for me in recent times. Despite a horribly difficult day I plucked up the courage to join my friends to Brighton on the 15th August, and I didn't regret a minute of it. From dancing our hearts out in the grimey clubs on the seafront in defiance of the fact that half the time low potassium dictated that I couldn't feel my hands or feet, to meeting strangers, to getting high on the beach, and finally meeting a lovely guy and ending up staying the night at his, which happened to be something that I will remember for the rest of my life. He was a psychologist, much older than me, but seemed greatly intrigued by me -   to which I cautiously asked whether I was a case study but of course the answer was a definite no - and we talked in depth I've rarely ventured with any soul on this earth for most of the night. Not only was it the best therapy I can say I've ever received but to feel loved for once was a wholeheartedly nourishing experience. In my frenzy however I left my camera at his flat which was stupid meaning I had to take a spontaneous trip back to Brighton the next day in the hope that I would somehow be able to find this obscure little flat, get inside and that he wouldn't be lecturing at university at that point in time. As it happened he wasn't there, but luck, or fate, or God knows what had it that when I somehow managed to find it that another resident popped outside and asked to borrow my lighter and kindly let me in after I explained the situation. After knocking on a few doors I eventually acquired the guy's number, though after it failed to save on my phone for a second time I managed to google how to transfer hidden numbers from the sim to the phone and voila, a message was sent and received. I proceeded, at a certain loss as of what next to do exactly to head to the Lanes where I knew I would feel safe, had a delicious black Earl Grey with three calorie-free sweeteners of course accompanied by an American Spirit rollie outside Costa and begun to feel quite alone. I'd been watching someone opposite who I had assumed to be homeless, bearing a hand-written sign reading: CHANGE IS INEVITABLE for quite some time and decided to follow my impulsive trait which had brought me such joy over the past twenty-four hours and go and talk to him. We did for perhaps an hour, which was lovely - he was a squatter who had travelled all over the world; he wasn't looking for money, only to spread some positivity as it were. It was truly inspiring. He said he hoped that I would get better. I said that I hoped that I would too.

Thankfully everything resolved itself. Shortly afterwards I was reunited by my somewhat worse-for-wear (on my part) camera and headed home. Now after days of attempting to write and complete this overly elaborate tale I can finally say that I am concluding it on a brighter note than tradition would allow. There have been many ups and downs over the course of this holiday so far and the one thing you can rely on family dynamics for is to be taught: but I know that there is no point ruminating on misery, or absorbing others' suffering. It manifests itself in me, I'm quite aware of that, but if a lesson can be learnt from any of this, it should be to give yourself a fucking break once in a while. 

I Was a Stranger

It's a quiet maelstrom into which I'm slipping. Glassy whirls of cosmic haze have caught me adrift and I  can do nothing but watch myself from afar as my uninhabited form spins in dizzying descent.

I only wish there was a soul on this earth who had lived as much as I have in my short years. Everyone is through with me so prematurely, through with dealing before I've ever had my share; I am thus left a stranger on this lonely road still burdened with the ghosts of my past - bereft and abandoned, that dark, sharp-taloned Raven known as sorrow the sole companion for my journey. No-body knows the suffering from which I am desperate to be relieved. 

This curious new path was largely unknown to me before, or at least to this extent. It feels as though life is spiralling into a state of unprecedented chaos and I do not know how to halt the progression, or even if I would if I could. Everything is taking over me and in my frailness I merely succumb to the tide. I'm tired, so very tired and the task of sustaining my defences during such an unholy war is becoming too much. It has been three nights since I slept at all and some time without food. Now a rather more fresh addiction - if the term is valid - is spinning the world beyond mere delirium and into further disarray.

My altered state is albeit a highly disorientating one in which the vision before me is a rippling vision of flickering scenes in progressive time zones; meaning that I have no idea which scene - which world - is reality and which was simply a transient precursor of the scene to follow, only to vanish like a dream. I am rapidly waking and re-waking into yet another dream after dream. The world is not true. Reality cannot be. Though I am not afraid: there have been times where I have fallen into this experience accompanied by feelings of intense terror and desperation to be secure and finally grasp what is real again. Now, however, I can let it wash over me, and treat the voice as a friend. 

Yet why do these behaviours cause my conscience a small sense of discomfort when they remain my only means of surviving a life that I cannot cope with? It seems cruel that the door to my shelter is also the one to my prison cell. 

In all honesty I don't give the highest regard for my own existence, but I have this great fear for the sake of others that something has set in motion that I will not be able to turn back from. There is already so much to contend with but my reality is becoming so deranged and distorted that I am uncertain what to do. I want all of this to be gone and to never have been at all.

I can't close my shelter.

Waking Up

So. I went for this walk.

It was raining an awful lot even though earlier it had been a good day except only weather-wise because I was having a bad day. So I thought, I’m going to go on a really long walk from Shinewater through Langney past Pevensey up to Sovereign Harbour and round to Princes Park and burn the zero calories I’ve consumed today and chill the fuck out. Mojo was asleep so I thought I’d go it alone, with my phone, like a gnome. Then I thought, whilst on this walk, fuck, this is taking me a long time. And I’m alone. I don’t like being alone. And I’m fucking tired. It’s raining, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, an absolute pathetic fallacy for my mood and life in general. But at least that means I can wear my Dad’s massive Barbour which makes my legs look slightly less fat. I’m going to have to employ coping mechanisms. What coping mechanism can I use in this situation? Probably the two I prepared earlier. I find being at my Dad’s really difficult and and I don’t care what you say for every means there is a just cause or something.

So I was walking along and by this point I was getting really tired. I passed two young lovers and a sleeping ice cream van and it made me think some more thoughts for a while. I was coming up to the Langney roundabout which seemed longer than it was but I’m really very very sorry that this story is getting too long. Holy moly. I wasn’t really thinking particularly hard as I was crossing a road but I was wise enough to know that when a red fiesta is approaching from the left it’s fair to cross as long as it’s in the distance so I did and the prick didn’t even have to slow down but he beeped because I had to maybe run a tiny bit but mainly because he was a prick which scared the shit out of me and when I landed on the other side of the road my heart was doing a funny dance and not a pretty one at that. By this point I figured that I might not quite make it all the way to Princes Park tonight. So I sat down at the nearest bus stop and said ‘Fuck’ out loud, like a don, because my bag was so heavy. I sat there for either ten minutes or ten hours and watched the rain, watched a bus pass, nearly stop with the bus driver glancing back and forth at me as he approached deliberating whether or not I was worth picking up, but then carry on; then I decided to stand up. As I was doing up my bag I realised that it had suddenly caught up on me and that everything was rippling tremendously and my self-dialogue was getting really really loud and I was beginning to have vivid conversations with myself in my head but with happy thoughts as oppose to sad ones and I thought I’m fucked this is good. 

I figured that I wasn’t going to make it home and I was beginning to worry as I didn’t fancy sleeping on the side of the road and I didn’t have the heart to phone my Dad and trouble him to jump in his car and collect me. So I turned around and started walking back and tried to phone Mum to tell her that I was having a lovely walk and it was turning my day around even though I was super tired and secretly worried about getting home and Dad making me have something to eat but she didn’t answer her phone. So I carried on and thought, let’s burn some more and shake things up a bit more. Let’s make this interesting. The cemetery would make an interesting route but then I remembered that that’s what horror movie directors would call creepy so maybe not. So instead of going all the way back to Milfoil Drive I took a left at Friday Tree, which made me a tiny bit pleased because I noticed that it was actually supposed to say Friday Street. I walked and walked and walked - it seemed to take forever and ever and ever. I like that symmetry. symmetry that like I .I reckoned that I would have to turn left at some point to basically do a circle on myself and end up back at Milfoil which I also thought was pretty damn clever but the only turning ahead said something Drive, but no it said Grove… Drive, Grove, Drive, Grove, which one could it be? What will this strange location be like? Drive suggests a closed end.. whereas Grove suggests a road with trees…. Which one? Am I squinting as much as I think I am? Suddenly. The obscurity evaporated: DROVE! I have no idea what that means. Still, I walked on and decided to take the next left because by the time I had finished thinking I had passed Something Drove anyhow. By this time I was on my second spliff.

After a while I saw a white camper van ahead which reminded me of pleasant memories of happy families and holidays to the Isle of Wight in Dad’s converted ambulance. Then fuck, my roach fell out. I think I might have told my Mum if I was still on voicemail, or imagined telling my Mum, or told myself or someone else that it was a filter and then following the phrase with copious giggles. I tried to put it back in but with little success as the roll was pretty goddamn wet with all the rain and all so I thought I’d go without, like the master that I am. I thought also, this is going to get me fucked. Like drinking from the bottle. Without the filter. Or maybe not. I don’t know. It’s getting to the point that I wish this psychological diarrhoea would give it a fucking rest to be frank. Anyway. Enough of that. I reached the camper van and realised it was parked in a pub carpark. I thought, maybe I could be an absolute daredevil like my Dad and sneak through the carpark and over the trees at the back and hope there’s not a brick wall on the other side or any parents putting their children back into the family car or police vans called to a local brawl. So I strolled through as nonchalantly as I possibly could wet spliff in hand and sometimes mouth and did a runner through the trees but as I write this my phone is sporadically vibrating because it keeps thinking it’s on charge but there is no wire plugged in and even my brother agrees I’m not making this up I swear to God it’s freaking me out IT’S MESSING WITH MY MIND. And I keep getting distracted by my Rowan’s incessant babbling that he pulled his tooth out and that he hid it under the sofa for me yesterday followed by the exultant phrase ‘Yeah Mimi eat i’ in a bowwl.’ But anyway. Thankfully there was no brick wall.

Then I had no idea where the hell I was. Sorrel Drive No.1-2 I thought, better not walk up there or you’ll be sorrel. So I went left again and thought I don’t recognise that construction site but then I thought just ignore it best ignore things you don’t recognise. I passed an elderly lady walking her dog as I trudged on and I really was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it home at all and I was so bloody thirsty but I smiled real horrorshow. Then I thought I saw a part of the bus route home I recognised but then I thought just ignore it best ignore things you recognise. Eventually I came to the top of the hill and I turned one of two directions and it was going okay again.

I carried on walking, I definitely saw a real-life squirrel. Then I turned out exactly where I wanted to be - homeward-bound that is - so kind of not so much where I wanted to be. I’m not sure now. Things seem good. I thought I know what I’ll do I’ll surprise the boys by coming in the back way and running in to the glass doors splat all soggy and shout hello but then I thought that would be rather undignified so I searched for my front door keys in my bag. I felt what I thought was the antique miniature bottle of eau de parfum attached to my keychain that I bought for a few euros in an amazing vintage warehouse in Treguier not Trebuchet in France last summer when everything was lovely but it was in fact my sugar-free fresh mint breath spray and all I kept thinking was I must brush my teeth when I get home I must brush my teeth when I get home I must brush my teeth when I get home and several more visionary scenarios branched off from that.

This isn’t how I normally write I’m in quite an altered state of mind.

On the way back I think I might have overheard/seen some domestic abuse. I still feel bad about that. I carried on walking. A police car drove past and I thought that was lucky/nearly unlucky had they passed earlier or had I been a slightly faster walker which for once makes me thankful I was tired and then I imagined a whole scenario had any of the above alternatives arisen involving policemen searches which I won’t go into.

Then I got home and I was very wet. On my hair. On my head. Then I sat down and wrote this story, even though it took a little while because I got distracted by family banter which was nice, watching Gulliver’s Travels intersected by sexual innuendos, my macbook being out of battery, taking ‘I wonder how tired I look ‘photos on Photo Booth after I plugged it in, then my Dad bringing me his reading glasses which he has used as he has got older and his eyes weaker basically suggesting that my eyes are shit which made me laugh and cry a little bit but the glasses were super funky so then taking more photos of that. I’m sorry that wasn’t a list of three, I’m really sorry about that.

So there you go. There’s your bedtime story for the night kids (except probably not for kids.)

Essentially, this story was already written word for word in my head on the way home. 

I’m thoroughly surprised that I remembered it all to be honest.

Soaked to the Skin

Why is it bleak here?
Winter has come once again
Tears are welling in my eyes

Comfort

In some uncertain light, comfort sighs. The soul's kawanami.

It's more than strange to have known absolute happiness amidst such intense grief. I had not thought it possible. Lying there as though I could forever in perfect, inexplicable contentment, when for the most part I long to escape the torture that is life altogether - these sentiments blossomed, vernal sacraments promising a future and a hope. 

Suddenly I am lost for words. I generally try not to censor the flow despite every anxiety that the result is a stream of consciousness which is emotionally elaborate in excess - yet now I find that every expression is a struggle. I don't know how to explain what I cannot, what I will never be able to be. It has been the strangest week of my entire life - which is saying an awful lot given that I've been in various psychiatric institutions - and I just don't know where to start. 

I'm still in a state of partial disorientation after the week's indulgences in copious quantities of substances I shouldn't be using but it's a reflective condition; one during which I have the ability to recognise, my thoughts order and release them in a hopefully reasonably comprehensible form as oppose to having some absorbent glass wall deaden every vessel of meaning in my mind and heart and then shoot from its exterior an action which is so entirely undetermined it seems as though it was born from thin air. Despite the sad reality that the almost frighteningly dizzying highs are subsiding, and my mood mellowing in accordance, I am still able to appreciate the good times that have been. I cannot and will not let myself crash completely. 

The week was far from devoid of turbulence, commencing with a wild night in Brighton spent, after a great gig with friends, chasing someone such an emotional and physical wreck that she was a danger to not only herself but others around her including me and those I was with. I don't think it was situations of trauma and moments of intense anxiety including various panic attacks that made it such an extraordinary week however; quite the opposite: for once in my whole life I found myself wanting to hold myself in a moment of time forever and ever as oppose to wishing it away completely. Newer still it wasn't only for the wrong reasons. It wasn't purely for starvation or the influence of intoxication, though undeniably both played a substantial part. I knew peace.

Insecurities will always invade any suggestion of a relationship which exists in my world. Somehow here however, some reciprocal connection, an inexplicable bond which I doubt can be defined so simply as lust or even love or good company rendered a sense of ease between us - we were, quite unconditionally, meant to be together at this time. Fate. Magic.

Now after the bliss of discovering, at least for one transient moment, true happiness I am slightly at a loss. I don't know where to find myself without another, when it seems that it is in that other that I have found home. I long to feel the comfort of being embraced again and adoring such a gesture as oppose to feeling terrified in its grasp. The sense of security once is beginning to become evanescent, drifting ever more distant on the horizon and thus persuading me further toward a means of gratifying self-destruction. Though I know this road well and have been on it for some time now it seems the downward trajectory is accelerating with alarming abruptness which contradicts the easy tranquility of my more pleasant mood and the preceding events. Physical deterioration is beginning to set in more rapidly than before, almost as some ironic remark from the universe about the imbalance of life. Maybe this is all I will ever know: my situation being good at one end of the spectrum means everything on the other must suffer as a result. Either way, I would sacrifice anything for the brief bliss I have known over past times - something I never imagined I would ever express.

My body may well be worn but my heart has found a rhythm which I hope can find the will to sustain. It's difficult to keep a hold on an abstract feeling, especially one so rarely felt. I can only try to remember.