Girl, Interrupted

The Big Earthquake of 08

2008-02-27T04:17:00.001-08:00

So there was an earthquake last night, around 1am. A whopping 5.3. Of course it’s nothing compared to other countries, but this is the UK. Things like that aren’t supposed to happen here. So it’s a big deal. All over the news. It woke me up – the bed was shaking backwards and forwards, and stuff was rattling in my room. It only lasted about 10 seconds. This morning it added an air of excitement to the day. How sad is that? I got overly excited by something new and unexpected happening in an otherwise extremely dull and boring week.

Progress

2008-02-25T02:33:00.001-08:00

There has been progress, of sorts.

The prozac reduction has been an up and down sort of process, but I am slowly getting myself together, and things are coming back – my urge to create, my urge to read, getting up in the morning is just a bit easier. It’s also baffling, as I’m having to feel things again. Here and there, I will get angry, or sad, and I have to keep telling myself it’s perfectly normal to feel these things in small doses, and it’s not a sign of mental collapse. I still get scared when I have a proper emotion, because I assume it’s the depression coming back, when in fact, it’s just a regular human emotion. I’ve lost touch with my own feelings, having been used to about 5 years of sugar coated, padded feelings. It’s a very slow process. Things come back bit by bit. They creep in so that I hardly notice them.

I’m still fat though. Hurtling towards obesity. That is a whole other ball game. That is going to take effort.

My Day

2008-02-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

It’s been sunny today. I went on the internet a lot. I worked a little. I strolled into town at lunch. Saw a crazy man talking to himself. Waited in line at M&S with some lunch, along with all the other office workers. I thought to myself, ‘I’m one of them.’ Felt disgusted. Am wearing a t-shirt with lots of little cats on it. I don’t care if I look childish. Ate lots of fruit. Then I ate a chocolate bar. 505 calories. Went to the office toilets, examined my stomach, as if I expected one little walk at lunch to make a difference. Took 2 Anadin Extras, no codeine. Felt bored, and also restless, and also very tired with the world. Drank a smoothie, it tasted sharp and made me wince. Silently seethed at co-worker who goes on endlessly about healthy eating. Didn’t talk much. Got to clean my car tonight. Emailed my boyfriend. He’s ordered Ladytron ticket for their gig in May. 35 minutes to home time.

I Like Birds

2008-02-08T03:11:00.001-08:00

Birds, I have discovered, are good to ease a low mood.

Whilst in Wales, sitting in a café, eating caramel shortbread, a robin flew through the open window, and just kind of chirped away on the floor. I dropped some shortbread crumbs, and he ate them up, then chirped for more. The waitresses threw me dark looks. This robin has made a habit of sponging off the customers. I think he was just trying to make his way in the world, and had discovered a genius way to do it. So there I was, inches away from this pretty little robin, singing his pretty little songs for my shortbread. The waitresses chased him away with a broom, but he just flew in through the window again, and came back to my feet. It’s quite something to connect with a wild animal.

There’s currently some bird chirping away very loudly outside the office window. It’s nice. Maybe I’ll get myself an aviary.

The Man From Eels

2008-02-06T02:44:00.000-08:00

Just read, ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know,’ by Mark Everett, or ‘E,’ from Eels. I like the music, but was also intrigued by his personal life, because his whole family plus friends kept dying all around him. His memoir was not particularly well written, which I expected. He’s not a writer, he’s a music maker. But it was a very interesting read. It left me thinking that I’d really like to have a chat with him. Share ideas. He’s quite fascinating really. A man so consumed with music making, and it was that which pulled him through when all else around him was in tatters. I wish I could be so consumed with something. I’m interested in things, but there isn’t anything that I feel particularly passionate about. Which is sad.

Anyway, I looked Mr E up on the internet, and found out his tour dates – he’s coming to Oxford in March. So I booked tickets to see him. I will be breathing the same air as this man. I’m always drawn to people who have seen the depths of depression. I’m very excited, or you know, as excited as it’s possible for me to be. He puts on quirky shows apparently, or so the book implies. I’m a fan of quirkiness. I so wish I could talk to him. He’d be so interesting.

Glum

2008-02-04T04:40:00.001-08:00

Two 20mg Prozac tablets a week. That’s what I’m down to. Further than I’ve ever gone before. I have noticed a slight panicky feeling sometimes, like I’ve slipped into another reality where nothing is safe – but it’s fleeting, and I expected it anyway. I don’t really feel that different….I’m quite blank today, but I had blank days on full dose too. Also off the codeine – for now. I long for it’s calming effect though. But I think it was damaging my insides.

Coming to work is a hellish experience at the moment. Maybe it’s the removal of the prozac’s comfy padding effect. I’m feeling the boredom of work more intensely, feeling more dissatisfied and restless. It’s not nice. I think antidepressants make reality more bearable, more sugar coated. Now I have to learn to live with it’s harsh nastiness and horrible people. I have to be smack bang in the middle of reality, and all my escapes are closed to me now. No codeine to take me away, hardly any prozac to make things seem safe…..can’t find solace in chocolate, because I need to lose weight. Went shopping over the weekend and bought nothing because I couldn’t find anything I liked. Shopping ALWAYS used to make me feel a bit better.

Ok, so I’m having a bad day. I’d rather like to take some Nurofen Plus. SOMETHING to take me away from this horrible place.

Snowdonia

2008-02-01T05:01:00.000-08:00

I just came back from a trip to Snowdonia, North Wales. A beautiful place. There are mountains, and lots of greens and browns and reds and trees and lakes and fresh air. Sheep skittering about on the hills. Old slate walls and old abandoned slate houses here and there. Beautiful rocky streams.

The boyfriend and I drove along and up winding roads, some of them single track, which was perilous. We went to the Welsh Mountain Zoo, Portmeirion (where they filmed The Prisoner), and an assortment of scenic drives. I could feel the fresh air cleansing my insides, and my skin became clear and healthy. It was nice. Not an ounce of codeine was consumed, not a flicker of panic as I ascended and descended the huge mountains.

Then of course, I came home. North Wales is beautiful and clean, but I was kind of glad to come back to civilisation, to shops and good places to eat, and anonymity. In Wales, small villages are speckled everywhere, and everyone seems to know each other, and wherever you go, the locals look at you with a mixture of boredom and confusion, like you’re an alien. It was kind of like stepping back 40 years. I like my shops, and restaurants – all the facilities that have made me the fat, greedy capitalist that I am today.

Coming to work again is a major downer. But I’m planning to go to Budapest around April/May time, which eases things somewhat.

SOB

2008-01-23T02:17:00.000-08:00

RIP Heath Ledger. I fancied you rotten and thought you seemed like quite a genuine kind of person.

It’s very sad, and I am perhaps sadder than I should be – bloody prozac withdrawal. I can’t decide what’s more sad – the fact that he left behind a two year old child, or the fact that it’s a tragic loss of a talented young man, or maybe it’s the tragic loss of someone so darn good looking.

The Haircut

2008-01-22T04:06:00.001-08:00

I got a haircut last Saturday, after much avoidance and stress. I couldn’t care less what they do to my hair, I worry about the social etiquette. They inevitably ask me if I’m doing anything exciting for a holiday, or if I’m going out that night, and if so, where. And I inevitably lie, because I don’t know where I’m going on holiday, and I’m probably not going out that night.

My hair was much too long, and my life much too boring. Walking into the salon was like walking into the jaws of death. My ‘fuck off’ demeanour , long black coat and walking-through-treacle slowness did not fit in with the perky young hairdressers with their fashionable hairdos and the busy bustling environment.

I tried not to talk. Because that’s when the jig is up, and they realise just how weird I am. I tried to smile, while silently wishing that they would hurry up so I could escape.

So now I have a fabulous hairdo.

I'm a sick, evil bitch

2008-01-22T03:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is not something you should read if you want to be cheered up. It’s the kind of thing you should read if you’re feeling a bit sadistic and want to punish yourself. Also, there’s the risk I may impart too much information, too much grossness, so consider yourself warned.

I’ve had a number of weird symptoms – pain in the abdominal area, pain when going to the loo (both number 1 and number 2s), aching coccyx. It all comes and goes and I even made a doctors appointment, only to cancel it again because the symptoms temporarily went away. Googling my symptoms produced a terrifying array of possible causes, ranging from IBS to cancer. I suspect it could be IBS, or it could be that I’ve hurt my coccyx and it’s causing all the abdominal stuff. The pain worsens after getting ‘physically intimate’ with the boyfriend. I had terrible stabbing pain in both the coccyx and the lower abdomen area. I’m scared it will happen again next time, but if it does, I’m going to go to the doctors when I get back from Wales. The only reason I’m not going now is that I have my period, so I want to make sure it’s not just that which is causing all the weirdness. There are a million possible causes, a million possible diagnoses’. But it’s not getting any worse. And while I’m in Wales with the boyfriend this weekend, he’ll just have to be patient, if the stabbing pains come back. I’m worried that if it is the coccyx, there isn’t much to be done. At least if it’s an infection I can just take a course of antibiotics. And if it’s just my period, I don’t need to do anything.

On a lighter note, a girl in the office is wearing a horrendous cardigan. She has possibly the worst taste in the world. I wish I could say that the cardigan was a one off faux pas. But it’s not. Yes, my own fashion sense is not all it could be, but I know enough to understand that a cardigan which has every colour known to man put together in a stripey kind of way, with yellow shiny buttons looks STUPID. It doesn’t stop with cardigans, bad taste leaks into every part of her life. But I’m being a bitch, so I’ll stop now. I’m no stranger to bad choices myself.

The Return

2008-01-15T02:31:00.001-08:00

It’s finally happened……they’re back.

Well, partially.

Item 1 - Whilst watching a documentary about orphaned elephants, my eyes filled with tears. I also got quite emotional watching as the little baby elephants formed bonds with each other, and greeted each other with outstretched trunks.

Item 2 – Last night I laughed. Properly laughed at something.

I think, slowly but surely, I’m developing proper emotional responses. I feel more hopeful that this time around, I will be able to kick the prozac. I did fleetingly fear that without medication, would I have to consider myself one of the normals. But no, I still have a lot of social interaction problems. For some bizarre reason, I never learned how to socialise properly. Which is why the whole boyfriend thing is as complicated as it is. Please don’t judge me. I’m not like a regular normal person. I can act like a bitch, be a bitch, but I believe that essentially I am a good person. Mostly.

Yogalates and other things

2008-01-09T06:51:00.000-08:00

Urgh. I ache all over. I bought a Yogalates DVD you see, and gave it a whirl last night. It’s a combination of yoga and pilates. The exercises themselves are pretty straightforward, and I barely broke a sweat. I thought to myself, ‘this can’t possibly be doing anything,’ but I woke up this morning, and I ache all over. A little bit of stretching and focussed breathing, for a short space of time, is all it takes to turn me into a cripple.

So I feel very delicate at the moment, mainly in the ass and ribcage area, bizarrely enough. Who ever said exercise is good for you clearly never tried yogalates.

And now for something completely different - Norovirus. It’s causing widespread vomiting and diarrhoea across the UK. I know of 2 people who’ve had it. I haven’t yet, but I’m kind of hoping to get it. A little vomiting is worth it for a few days off of work.

As for the boyfriend dilemma, well, I feel a bit better about it today. Yesterday I got into a real state about it. I think I feel quite pressurised to move in with him, get a mortgage, basically be a grown up before I’m ready. But nothing is set in stone. We’re going to Wales in a few weeks, Snowdonia to be precise, and I’m looking forward to that. I’ll have to see how it goes. I have no idea what I’m doing really. I don’t have that much experience with men, and commitment.

Dilemma

2008-01-08T07:22:00.001-08:00

I’m a little bit stuck. The boyfriend and I had planned to move in together in August, after the lease on his flat runs out. I had planned to move to Oxford, work in Oxford, travel a bit with the boyfriend, and generally change everything about my life.

But, the boyfriend has been very difficult lately. Very needy. Nothing kills passion more than needy desperation. And my feelings for him were never that strong anyway. I had blamed prozac for this general apathy, but now I’m not so sure. As I reduce and reduce my prozac dosage, nothing is happening. I always cruelly wondered if I could do better, while the boyfriend goes on and on about how perfect we are together. There’s this terrible guilt I feel, for not being able to reciprocate, and also the panic, as I get in deeper and deeper. First we became official, then we got engaged, then we agreed on a time to move in together….it all seems like too much.

To end it all would cause him a lot of suffering. I feel terrible for saying this but…..if we break up, my travel buddy is gone, and all hope of me going abroad and seeing the world is gone. I’m woefully unsociable, and my only other friend is a bulimic who is at best unreliable, and has no money, and no desire to travel. She’s lovely and I adore her, but I can’t travel with her. And life seems pointless to me, if I can’t travel and see the world.

I am a cruel and terrible person. I should have gotten out a long time ago. I should have stayed single, and never tasted the wonderful Paris (which gave me the travel bug).

But maybe this is just the fear talking. I feel a lot of pressure to move in with him. I’ll be 26 this summer. That’s too old to be living with the parents. I cannot afford to go it alone.

My choices are thus:

1 - Stay with boyfriend. Move in with boyfriend. Live a life of travel and independence from parents, whilst feeling a degree of love and affection for boyfriend, but not the proper love that he claims to feel. Live my life feeling the constant nagging doubt that I could have found proper love with someone else.

2 – Break up with boyfriend. Stay with parents till the day I die. Never go beyond the UK. Never go out, except for the occasional trip out with the bulimic friend.

3 – Break up with boyfriend. Meet the love of my life. Become a famous artist.

Option 3 is nice. But highly unlikely.

The Office Christmas Party - an unexpected triumph

2008-01-04T04:41:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention the office Christmas party. That much talked about event of the working year, where people get drunk and do stupid things, and return to work fresh faced in January, pretending nothing ever happened.

This year was no exception. People got drunk and did stupid things. I don’t drink, so I was the only sober one amongst a sea of twats. I got cornered by the office weirdo (even weirder than me, which is really saying something). He proceeded to talk to me, and accidentally spit on my face, and generally piss me off. While he babbled on about how quiet I was, blah blah blah, I looked around at everyone else, and they were all laughing and looking very happy, i.e. drunk. And I was having a horrible time, as usual. Never in my life have I been to an office ‘event’ that I enjoyed.

So I stood up and left, feeling terribly liberated. Something inside me snapped, and I refused to be part of the office bollocks any more. From here on in, I refuse to go to another Christmas party. I REFUSE. I always sit in the corner in a pretty dress, watching as everyone around me gets stupider and stupider, getting more and more unsteady on their feet, and then saying things they should regret, but don’t, because they’ve forgotten it by the morning. Last year a girl from the office began sobbing uncontrollably and actually placed her head in my lap, and confessed to me a number of things she really shouldn’t have, and then, when I saw her next, she didn’t acknowledge it, or even seem to remember it.

My walking out of the party, and slipping into the night feeling very free, was a very good thing. Once I would have cared about what people thought, or sacrificed my own feelings to please other people. Now I’m learning not to.

Ho ho ho

2008-01-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a kind of numb experience for me. I spent Christmas and Boxing day with family – that is, my body was moving around and I managed a certain degree of conversation, without feeling very present and altogether conscious. I managed to be there in body but not in mind. It’s a handy little mechanism that kicks in whenever it feels like it. I have no apparent control over it. My auntie’s baby was the only thing that pulled me back to reality, briefly. He’s now about 7 months, and a delight. I spent a happy afternoon completely hypnotised by his enthusiasm for everything, his desire to eat everything, and his temperament, which is friendly, and pretty happy to be around anyone, including me. I presented him with an assortment of toys, which he chewed. He was fascinated by my camera, which he also tried to chew. The boyfriend was around somewhere. I failed to notice anyone but the baby. It’s my hormones you see. The primitive desire to reproduce is strong in me. Although seeing the baby was also pretty scary, because I knew that my body could probably handle it, but mentally I’m not ready.

Anyway, all in all, a pretty surreal few weeks. It’s very odd, this whole depersonalisation thing. It happens most Christmases and birthdays. I’m there but not there. I go through the motions. Nothing can hurt me. I’m back at work now and still I feel that odd sort of calm, like I’m separate from my body.

Spent a few days in Oxford, with the boyfriend, which was ok in the end. But I hadn’t been looking forward to it. After the family overdose at Christmas I had the overwhelming desire to be alone, and mull over things on my own, but obviously the boyfriend would not understand this. So I wandered with him around Oxford, and we went to London to see the Millais exhibition at the Tate. Coming face to face with Millais’ work was actually a little moving. You can admire paintings when they are printed in books and on posters, but coming face to face with the originals is quite an experience. The colours are more vivid, the scale larger. It was almost worth the extortionate £10 entry fee. The South African in-laws had come with us, which was nice, and they bought me a Millais book from the Tate shop. AND the boyfriend’s mum kept taking pictures of me, and held my hand as we said goodbye. She’s my polar opposite – enthusiastic and emotional. Still, as my prozac dosage dwindles further I shall have to see what happens, maybe I’ll become emotional too. I can already feel the tears emerging with greater ease when I watch a sad TV programme.

Happy New Year to everyone who reads me. May we all get through 2008 with some degree of sanity. I hope to lose some weight this year, as my Christmas binge has resulted in some extra flab. I’m convinced my lips are getting smaller, as they disappear into the round puffy moon that is my face. Hopefully I will emerge from the fatty cocoon I have made for myself this year.

My New South African Family

2007-12-17T03:55:00.000-08:00

My boyfriend is South African. He came to live over here in the UK but his parents still live there, in Grahamstown. They are in the UK this Christmas however, and I got to meet them yesterday. Being as socially retarded as I am, I expected the worst, but was actually pleasantly surprised, and my combination of smiling and nodding at appropriate moments seemed to work in my favour. I liked them. The dad, Terrance, is 81, but still a proud 6ft 3 giant, and Margo, the mum, was skinny as a rake, which explained why my boyfriend can eat like a horse and never gain a pound. They’re academics. They know authors and they’re very cultured. A lot of the conversations involved archaeology, literature, a whole list of authors I’d never heard of, and they often talked of Florence, and Vancouver, and all the many places in the world they have been. I couldn’t really contribute to these conversations. My own small pool of experiences don’t really compare to their massive ocean of cultural wealth. I’m not stupid, I’m just not a super educated success story. I don’t know anyone who’s written a book.

We all went out for a Chinese. Me, my boyfriend, his parents and his South African sister, with her South African husband. I suppose I should have felt out of place, considering they’re all far too successful, and I so clearly am not. But actually it was as though I was watching a TV programme or something, just observing these people with their pretty accents and their alien lifestyles. It would be nice to marry into a family like that, a family for whom mental illness is just a concept they probably discussed over a glass of wine. It would be nice to be part of their world, I’m pretty sure just being a part of that family would take me places, and offer up opportunities. The boyfriend and I had discussed going to South Africa at some point. That would be nice.

I’m feeling oddly pleased with myself. I’m not entirely sure why. I think I just feel that this family could teach me things. And it’s nice to feel like I have more options now, where once life seemed bleak. I know this feeling won’t last. But I’m quite enjoying it now.

Rambling.....

2007-12-13T07:52:00.000-08:00

Between the hours of 9am and 1pm, I am almost 88% productive, alert, and functioning. The rest of my working day is a steady decline, until 5, when I am almost comatose. The comatose state can only be remedied by an emergency with one of my projects, which happened today actually. But I’m ok. I’m calm. A cool cat. I’m not as important as I sound. It’s monkey work. But I still have a moment of panic when something goes wrong .

It’s icy here. Some whisperings of a white Christmas have been circulating. Being a depressive, you won’t be terribly shocked to find out that Christmas is not my favourite time of year. I do like all the funky coloured lights on the houses (and my neighbour has a giant inflatable Christmas Homer Simpson strapped to the front of his house) and yes, presents are nice, both giving and receiving. BUT, a gloom still descends. Christmas was magical and special until I hit puberty, then it seemed to lose it lustre.

The sky is currently a rather disconcerting murky pink.

I'm Back

2007-12-11T03:39:00.000-08:00

I have decided that Facebook is the root of all evil. I will not look at it’s hideous array of ghosts again.

The Gloom is present, but not too bad today. My faculties are diminishing though….my car requires you to put your foot on the clutch in order for it to start up. Only I put my foot on the accelerator and wondered why it wasn’t starting up. I thought my car was broken, but actually it’s just my head. My brain. I’m acting like a person who hasn’t slept for days, when in actual fact I sleep like a baby. I got at least 7 hours last night. My bed is right by my bedroom window, and when I sat up this morning the sky was blue, with a line of pink on the horizon, and there was an early morning mist.

Have to drag my sorry ass to town during my lunch hour. I shall dip myself into the sea of frantic Christmas shoppers, and try to buy as much as possible before getting the hell out. I need Christmas cards, wrapping paper, presents…..

The cold virus has pretty much gone now. I spent a few sick days at home reading Sylvia Plath’s journal, her letters to her mother, her novel ‘The Bell Jar’ and a Sylvia Plath biography. I felt terribly inadequate after that. Her life was short but eventful. I took a look at my life with despair. True, this last year has been very eventful, but I’m 25. That’s 24 wasted years. 24 years where I didn’t do an awful lot, except get bigger, and more bitter. I’ve spent far too much time being depressed and lethargic, lolling around like a hippo in a mud bath. Now I’m desperate to travel, I feel a sense of urgency to hurry up and experience things.

CRAP

2007-12-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

Been feeling a bit crap recently. Both mentally and physically. Plagued by a cold that will not leave, plagued by the kind of inertia that means I don't post here for weeks.....feel like I have nothing to say.....I blame Christmas. I think I'm just going to pretend it's just another day, like all the rest...which it essentially is.

Had a headache all week, won't respond to any kind of painkiller, and believe me, I've tried them all. It makes everything seem much bleaker, much harder....

Strange Thing

2007-11-23T04:39:00.001-08:00

It’s odd. I feel quite chirpy today. This doesn’t happen a lot, and it probably won’t last the whole day, but even so. It’s odd. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Yes, looking forward to tomorrow. I’m going to Bluewater you see, it’s a massive shopping centre. My intention is to go xmas shopping, but I’ll probably just end up buying clothes, because I have no willpower. I’m excited – what the fuck is going on? I’m going two days a week without prozac now, in yet another attempt to get my emotions back. I expected darkness, I expected days of zombie existence, I expected lethargy and irritability. But not this. Not…….excitement. I’m always suspicious of The Good Feelings, especially these ones, because they’ve come from nowhere.

AH. Lightning bolt. I know why I’m happy. It’s a sunny day. It’s been dark and misty here all week. Today is the first sunny day. My brain is very sensitive, like a flower, it needs sunlight to work. In the UK the weather is very changeable. A few days ago we had a little snow. A few weeks ago there were floods. Global warming you see. It’s giving us bizarre and extreme weather conditions. And it’s messing with my head.

Picture to Warm the Cockles of your Heart

2007-11-21T04:09:00.002-08:00

QVC

2007-11-21T04:09:00.001-08:00

I had a dream that I was walking around M&S’s Café Revive with a tray, and I was searching for food. I selected a Danish, a pretzel, and a coke. But as soon as I put them on my tray, one item would disappear, and I’d be searching the café for it. I’d find it, then something else on the tray would go missing.

I was awoken from this bizarre dream by my mother, thrusting a pair of earrings in my face. ‘Look! Smoky quartz. I bought them from QVC.’ I then had to endure her going on about what other precious stones these earrings were available in. For fucks sake. She’s obsessed with QVC, and it’s becoming serious now. She’s quoting their sales blurb to me now.

I can’t watch more than 10 seconds of QVC before I want to tear my eyes out. To be fair QVC sell some ok stuff, and yes it’s cheaper than it is in the actual shops, BUT, having to sit through the inane blah from the presenters is like torture, like slow and painful death. It’s turning my mum into a zombie.

Alzheimer's

2007-11-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

My memory, or lack of memory, is bothering me. I’m sure it’s getting worse. I can basically remember what I do, but the boyfriend will often ask me if I remember that CD he played me, or do I remember when we did xxxxx, and do I remember when we had xxxxxx conversation. I quite often look at him blankly because I have no idea what he’s talking about. Either my boyfriend has a photographic memory, or mine is just screwed. Is it medication? Is it depression? Is it some horrible disease? Will it just keep on getting worse until I don’t even remember my own name? I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was yesterday. I just didn’t know whether it was Monday or Tuesday. I had to actually think about it. I sat in my room on Sunday, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do at work the next day. I can usually recall these lost facts, but it takes a considerable effort.

I guess I am still depressed. It’s hard to tell. I do feel very lethargic, and rather than looking forward to my future I am resigned to it. I function day to day, but with little enjoyment. I’ll have a few moments of excitement, then I tire myself out, and sink into apathy again. Could be depression, or meds, or just life. I don’t know what is normal anymore. I don’t know if people are supposed to recall entire conversations, or actually look forward to a new day.

All I know is that if you ask me what I did the weekend before last I wouldn’t have a clue. If you ask me what the last thing I saw at the cinema was, I wouldn’t have a clue. It’s just gone. And what’s the point in living if you don’t remember any of it? It makes me wonder what the point of living actually is, even for those people whose memories are still there. Because you do all of these things, and then you die, and all those things you loved and treasured and all those events that shaped you are gone. And now I have to stop this train of thought, because it could go into some very difficult areas. I’ll have to start thinking about clothes, and what I’m going to eat for dinner, because that’s much safer isn’t it?

Saturday Trip to London

2007-11-19T04:25:00.000-08:00

I had a very active Saturday. The boyfriend and I spent a heady 2 hours on the train, which arrived in London in the afternoon. We went to the Louise Bourgeouis exhibition at the Tate Modern, which was very busy, but very nice. I love Bourgeouis. The woman is in her nineties I believe, and she spent her whole life obsessed with motherhood, family, birth, and pregnancy. She presents a lot of non-threatening genitalia in her work, such as boobie sculptures, but they aren’t sexual because they’re in the context of motherhood. Her kids appear in her work, disguised as chairs, and abstract shapes. I could go on for hours, but I won’t.

In the evening we went to an Arcade Fire gig. I love Arcade Fire, and I knew I would enjoy them live, but hell is other people, as someone once said, and it was these Other People that ruined it. There were literally millions of people crammed into Alexandra Palace – I was crushed against a barrier at one point, as the crowd heaved. I tried leaving, and re-entering the hall from the back, which was less crowded. I could see the band but they were little like ants. Luckily they had TV screens to show the band close up. Some girl near to me was so drunk she was swaying and staggering about waving her arms in the air, which turned into waving her jacket in the air, and randomly throwing it over people’s faces. Her boyfriend tried to pretend he wasn’t with her. But she fell on him, and they had an argument, and he dragged her away. Another guy in the crowd was having some kind of religious experience. He was very into the music, seemingly oblivious to everyone around him. As for me, I enjoyed the pretty stage with all the lights, and I enjoyed the music, and it was all ok, I was my usual detached self.

Sunday was a mess. Saturday night had been very tiring, so on Sunday I was pretty much a zombie, pretty much good for nothing except sitting in my jeans without any make up on, sipping diet coke, watching TV with the boyfriend. I was very clumsy and forgetful. I left my front door keys in the frikkin door, so I could have been murdered in my sleep.

Now I’m at work, craving Kinder Eggs and Nurofen Plus, neither of which are available to me right now. I’m plotting what to do with my lunch hour, where to go for my fix. It’s raining, but I have a car. I can drive but the traffic will be heavy. What a dilemma.

Um...

2007-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

I’m not so annoyed today. The fog has lifted. I walked around town at lunch – a good hour spent walking briskly, which, if I do it often, shall hopefully reduce the flubby flabby bits that keep popping up all over my body.

On a more serious note, a girl at work has an auntie that is refusing to have any more chemo, and will die in 6-8 weeks. Can you imagine having a death date? I can’t. It would be so bizarre to know when you’re going to die. I want to go quickly, and unexpectedly. When you’re depressed, death is a subject you think about a lot. Or maybe I’m just dark. My mind has always chosen to dwell on things that are a bit morbid. But death does scare me. I have no faith to hold on to, no visions of an afterlife, I think you just return to the same black hole of nothingness you came from. I really wish I could believe otherwise, but I just can’t.

I’m so glad I went to Paris. It was something I really wanted to do. I can die happy knowing that at least I did that. I miss it in a weird sort of way. Usually I return home from a holiday pleased to be back. But I’m even dreaming about Paris now. If you get the chance, go. I have an obsession with Kath and Kim, so I want to go to Australia. But that’s not very likely to happen as it’s a ridiculously long flight, and quite pricey too.

Rage

2007-11-13T07:14:00.000-08:00

I’m annoyed. That’s been my mood for the last couple of days. I have the usual vacant gloomy thing going on, but it’s all laced with irritation. Some girl at work is making an assortment of noises – chewing gum, typing too loudly, and she has a new haircut that looks weird. If she could just grow her hair out and shut the fuck up, I would be much happier. If people could stop slamming the door to the office, I would be very grateful. If the traffic outside could all fuck the hell off so I don’t have to sit in it this evening, I would be ecstatic.

There’s more. Much more, but I can’t be bothered to list everything, that would make me even more depressed, and angry. Of course I know I’m being a brat, that it’s probably PMS, etc. I make no excuses for myself. I’m being very difficult and bitchy.

I’m not feeling the love for my boyfriend either. I feel nothing. He’s very clingy, it’s quite a turn off. I think I may have found myself the most sentimental man on the planet. I have seriously considered ending it, but I’m not sure I can trust my mood right now. And my life without him would be pretty empty. I just can’t get myself to feel anything, about him, or about anyone. It sounds evil but I’m in a place right now where I care for nothing. Perhaps I’m turning sociopathic.

It has to be PMT. HAS to be. I always get hungrier around this special time, and I’ve been eating almost solidly all day. I’m hungry right now, and I’ve only just eaten something. OR, it could be that I’ve been playing on my Nintendo DS too much and it’s making me crazy. That doesn’t explain the hunger though.

Fat!

2007-11-09T04:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve just eaten a slice of chocolate cake and a chocolate bar. I seem to have become a bit of a binge eater of late. I binge but do not purge. The weight is piling on, making me look like a sharpei dog.

I’m exercising tonight. I have a workout video. I’m going to do it. I don’t want to be a sharpei.

Nostalgia

2007-11-06T04:36:00.000-08:00

A funny thing is happening. I seem to have split into 2 people. One is a child, and one is an adult. The childish part spends hours looking up TV programes on the internet that I remember from when I was a kid, and eating Kinder Eggs. The adult part of me looks at the childish part and shakes her head in confusion. I can act all grown up with my pinstripe trousers and air of maturity, but step into my bedroom and you’ll see the Kinder Egg bounty, the clothes strewn everywhere, the collection of Button Moon/Trap Door/The Girl From Tomorrow DVDs. My adult part knows that I’m just doing this as a way of recapturing the excitement I felt as a child, trying to re-live it, because it was safe, and I was still capable of feeling things like hope and also excitement from something as simple as a chocolate egg with a stupid plastic toy in it. My brain is tired of not feeling very much so it’s come up with a plan.

Seriously, I’m obsessed with Kinder Eggs. They were a treat when I was little. Now it’s just sad.

I recently discovered that you can buy ‘The Girl From Tomorrow’ and the sequel, ‘Tomorrow’s End’ on DVD. I LOVED these series.’ I was only about 10 when I first saw it. Now I can watch them again. Secretly, and with a vague sense of embarrassment.

What’s happening to me?

Self Indulgent Little Girl

2007-11-01T04:33:00.001-07:00

I had a dream about Aging Rocker Man last night. We were a couple, and we were wandering around London. I felt quite affectionate towards him in this dream. It was weird seeing him at work this morning. Lately I’ve been having lots of dreams about being romantically involved with people other than my boyfriend. I’ve even had erotic dreams about other women, which is bizarre, and somewhat disturbing. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

It seems after the high anxiety of the last few months I’ve now slumped back into a mild depression. I’m finding it harder to get myself to react, or feel anything other than irritable and very dismayed with the people around me. I think I prefer this to anxiety, but it’s not exactly an ideal situation. I want to feel ALIVE. Whatever that means. I can’t remember anymore.

I’ve been on antidepressant since 2002. I started on citalopram, which was wonderful. I felt really good on that. Too good in fact. I felt euphoric. Once the effects of those wore off, nothing else ever came close to making me feel that good. Now I wish I’d never started on medication. I should have just stuck with therapy, I would certainly be skinnier now if I’d done that, and perhaps I’d be able to engage with life a little more. These days I experience things sort of half-heartedly, and my memory is terrible, so I forget most of the things I’ve done, and most of the books I’ve read. My memory is shocking. Sometimes I can’t remember words, or when someone asks me what I did last weekend I have to think for about 10 minutes to recall.

In the past I was diagnosed as Dysthymic, which is a chronic, less severe form of depression. So it means I can function almost like a normal person, but I’m dogged by a constant low mood and lack of pleasure. There’s been something wrong with me since I was 16. And the years before that were setting the scene, mixing together just the right ingredients to make me crazy.

Apologies for the sheer self indulgent self pity of this.

I'm a junkie

2007-10-31T04:24:00.001-07:00

It’s a quiet day in the office today…..I’m floating on a pleasant codeine high. I’ve discovered that I get a better rush when I take Nurofen Plus, which is a combination of ibuprofen and codeine. I tried taking some other painkiller that contained paracetamol and dihydracodeine, but it didn’t work as well, and it upset my stomach. I don’t recommend taking any of these recreationally. They feel very nice but I’m finding it very difficult to stop. I think my problem is that I don’t want to stop. They make me feel nice. If I could take a look at my insides I’d probably see what damage they are doing, but I’m in a kind of denial. Like a junkie I keep telling myself ‘I could stop if I really wanted to,’ and ‘I’m still in control.’ I can also see these things are becoming less and less true. But there remains a part of me that doesn’t think I have a problem. After all, it’s not heroin (my brain keeps telling me.)

It would be nice if I didn’t have to take anything, including antidepressants. It would be nice if my brain just worked, without any help.

Black Sandwiches

2007-10-26T06:53:00.000-07:00

All over the world, terrible tragedies are taking place. Here, in my office, someone just found some black sandwiches in the fridge. Black and smelly and no longer suitable for consumption.

I’m vacant today. Since Paris it’s been as though I had a lobotomy.

Last night the boyfriend and I went to The Carling Academy to see Kate Nash. I staggered around in uncomfortable shoes, and a pretty purple dress, feeling very ugly. I looked at the people around me and I hated all of them. Most were students, dressing to emulate someone famous. Then some man with spiky hair stood in front of me, blocking my view of the stage. I saw New Young Pony Club not so long ago, and I really enjoyed myself. This time my heart wasn’t in it. I had the intense desire to be alone. Why did I even bother to dress up? I was wearing these tight tights and they cut into part my stomach, so I looked like I had two overly large stomachs. It was gross.

So I was pissed off because of the stomach thing, and then my boyfriend begins to annoy me too, for no tangible reason. I considered telling him to piss off. He kept talking, and I kept looking down at my stomach, and I didn’t listen to a word he said. He later accused me of being distant. I was feeling a bit out of it and I hate the fact I can’t just be depressed around him, I always have to be well or pretend to be well, and when he asks me if I’m excited about something, I have to say ‘yes’ when I really mean ‘no, I never get excited.’ He knows I’m depressed, and claims to understand, but then he gets upset when I’m not as enthusiastic about things as he is. Sometimes I look at him and feel nothing at all, but when I haven’t seen him for a few days I miss him. I often wonder if I would love him more if I wasn’t medicated and chronically, mildly depressed the whole time.

Ah, I don’t know. I know nothing.

?

2007-10-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

I’m 12 years old, I start secondary school. Boys still see girls as yucky and are still in the hair pulling stage. So imagine my surprise when I meet a boy who is nice to me and talks to me normally. He doesn’t tease me. My 12 year old brain falls in childish love. Dan is his name. We go bowling once. It’s the thing to do when you’re 12. I’m too scared to kiss him, due to chronic shyness. The love affair is over. I write in my diary my feelings of woe.

Fast forward 10 years. I meet Dan again, we email, we chat, we meet up once, go driving around in his car, and then we kiss. He’s in a band, he has dreads – I find him very attractive, probably because he’s so totally unlike me. We never had a relationship, it’s more a series of trivial encounters that meant more to me than to him. He is surrounded by friends, and female attention, he doesn’t need me. Over the years contact becomes erratic, and here I am now, at 25, not knowing where he is or what he’s doing (although I do know he’s still in a band).

I had a dream about him last night. It’s the second one in a month. And I still think about him, in a vague kind of way, even though nothing ever really happened between us. He refuses to budge, even though I’m engaged to someone else now.

I have a theory. Familiarity feels safe, and I’ve been going on the internet a lot lately, looking up toys and TV programmes I enjoyed when I was little. I think I’m looking for security via my past. Hence Dan, who was my first infatuation, and was present all through my adolescence. We hardly ever spoke at school after the bowling incident but for some reason my brain has latched on to him. It’s odd. I haven’t actually seen him in a few years now.

Damn it. If I was better at writing I could have said all of this much better……

Back to 'Reality'

2007-10-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Since returning from Paris I’ve been wandering round in a bit of a daze, unable to really focus, or feel ‘present.’ But the stress has gone. Just gone. Like it was never there. I can’t even remember it. Nothing. I just feel a vacant sort of calm. I’m looking forward to going home and doing nothing. I told myself I would begin an exercise regime after Paris, but so far it hasn’t materialized, and I just keep on expanding, like a contented whale. I WILL exercise soon…..maybe.

Photos of Paris!

2007-10-23T04:15:00.001-07:00

I went to Paris!

2007-10-23T04:04:00.001-07:00

I went to Paris. I had an ok time. I went to the very top of the Eiffel Tower, saw La Louvre, visited the Jardin des Tuileries, went on the big wheel there and saw amazing Parisian landscape, ate crepes and ice creams, went to the Catacombs (and was pretty freaked out by all the skulls), wandered the Latin Quarter, went to Notre Dame, sat beside the fountain at the Jardin Du Luxembourg, took the Metro, the RER, a bus, and a taxi, and finally, I came to the realization that I really need to work on my French, because I just can’t say very much at all.

I noticed many things that were different from the UK. For example, French beggars actually come up to you with little bowls and ask for money, whereas in the UK they are usually slumped in doorways in a drunken stupor. Cars do not stop for you on pedestrian crossings, even though the green man is showing. French women dress in a more classical, demure way. When you go for a meal, you sometimes get complementary bread and water. I know all seasoned travelers already know all of that, but I’m new to this.

Paris actually reminded me a lot of London, only Paris is better, more compact, cleaner…..I like Paris.

I still can’t quite believe that I did it. Once I was in Paris I felt ok, but the journey there was fraught with anxiety. It was a case of just holding on. And once in Paris, it was amazing how quickly I got used to it. There were 4 solid days spent with the boyfriend, and I hate to say it but 24 hours a day for 4 days did test my patience a bit. I guess I like being alone sometimes.

The big wheel at the Jardin des Tuileries was a pretty exciting thing to do. We had to share our little carriage with an american lady, who had veneers. She told us she liked to ski, so heights didn’t bother her at all. I clung to the bars, because heights bother me very much. But the views were amazing, so it was worth it.

We found a falafel place on some little street in the Latin Quarter. I had my first falafel in Paris. I had a MASSIVE ice cream in the café down the road from our hotel. I mostly pointed at things on the menu and hoped for the best.

There was a transport strike while we were there, which was a pain, but luckily we were situated close to a lot of things, so we could walk to most things. The Metro was running but much less frequently and it was crammed with people. The buses were crammed too, so we walked A LOT.

So I did it, and for me it was a major achievement. I will always be a nervous traveler, but now I KNOW that I can do it, and now I am free to travel, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. My life will now be a little less restricted, a little more interesting, less of a waste.

Paris Again

2007-10-15T04:21:00.000-07:00

The Paris trip looms. Will I be able to do it? I can’t imagine actually standing next to the Eiffel Tower, and being able to touch it. I can’t imagine actually being there, and seeing all these things I’ve only ever seen in pictures before. I just can’t picture myself there. But the tickets are real, the hotel is booked. The suitcase is lying open in my bedroom, waiting to be filled. I feel nervous, because it’s a new experience for me. I want so bad to travel, but I’ve not been able to go too far due to my panics. How ridiculous that I’m scared of panic. ‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself’ and all that. I’m scared of being scared. In what twisted world does that make sense?

I’m waking up early, being extra forgetful and clumsy, and my eyes are pretty bloodshot. In short, I am a bit of a wreck. But if I can just hold on until Wednesday, if my boyfriend can prop me up long enough so that I actually enter Paris, then I will be ok. I’ll eat French bread and cakes and take photos and buy tacky souvenirs. I’ll fudge my way through the French language and watch French TV. Luckily the hotel staff speak a little English, and they seem pretty friendly. Instead of sitting here at my desk working, I’m on the hotel website obsessively trying to comfort myself with the joys of potential room service, and our room which has a view of Notre Dame.

Crazy People in my Office

2007-10-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

People are strange. I’ve just spent the last 5 minutes traumatized by the boy behind me eating his lunch. It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard – mouth open, squelchy noises aplenty. The 40 something mildly famous musician that sits to my left didn’t bat an eyelid to this monstrous noise, and yet when someone’s computer beeps, or a mobile phone goes off, he tuts and looks appalled. And there’s a woman in the corner quietly talking to herself, CONSTANTLY. Then there’s the lady who’s into amateur dramatics, who started talking about vibrators yesterday, embarrassing the Christian lady who sits next to her.

We’re all packed together like battery hens here, and there’s no getting away from anyone.

Also in the office today we have:

An old lady in a wig
My boss surrounded by photos of her guinea pigs
A lady in a fluorescent pink cardigan
A collection of small plastic ducks, belonging to the girl who sits opposite me

The Ravings of a Hypochondriac

2007-10-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

It’s quite possible I’ve become ill. It could be down to a number of factors, which is annoying, because it means I don’t know exactly why and what this is. I have a sort of weak feeling, with achy muscles, and my skin feels sensitive to touch. I’d be inclined to think it was codeine withdrawal, if I happened to be going cold turkey, which I’m not. I’d be inclined to think it was the flu, but I don’t have the cough or the runny nose. Perhaps it is codeine withdrawal. Perhaps my body needs more to be satisfied. Codeine is also a constipator, so maybe my body is just full of toxic stuff. All I know for sure is that I feel weird. Perhaps it’s stress? I have been very stressed lately. Perhaps it’s wreaking havoc with my body. Perhaps the cortisol is making me sick. It’s the stress of being stressed. Perhaps it’s meningitis, in which case I’m done for. My last few hours will be spent here at work. I don’t want to die at work!

People here are pissing me off. All I want to do is go home and lie in a very hot bath, and die quietly in the comfort of my own home.

3 Nights in Paris

2007-10-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

Urgh. My biggest problem at the moment is anxiety. I can push the rising panic down at the moment. But it’s always there. I know why. First it was the seminars, now it’s my upcoming trip to Paris. I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, but it’s a big deal for me to do it. It’s not that I’m scared of any one thing in particular, it’s more a feeling of ‘will I be able to cope with this or will I just collapse in a heap on the floor?’ ‘Will I be able to negotiate the Metro, order French food, wander round the tourist attractions without fear?’ I fear the unknown. If I can’t picture how things will be I panic. I’ve never been to Paris before. I know a little French but not enough to have a proper conversation. I know not to order escargot however. So I can almost guarantee I will not be putting any snails into my mouth. Yuk.

I tried to go to Paris once before. I was on a coach with Suzanne, heading for Dover. Then I panicked. Suzanne always has valium, so I took 2 of her tablets. I fell asleep for a while, but when I woke up the panic was so severe that at the service station I puked and cried, and I had to get my dad to pick us up, because I simply couldn’t go any further. Suzanne, luckily, is a good friend, and she understood. I cried for hours. I cried in the service station, surrounded by other people, and not one of them took any notice of me. I fell asleep again in the car on the way home. The valium made me drowsy but couldn’t stop the panic. It wasn’t just panic though. It was some terrible, terrible feeling. I would have done anything to stop it. I would have trampled my own mother in order to run away from this panic.

I don’t even know what I was so scared about. I tried hypnotism to get rid of that panic, and as a result I have been able to spend weeks away with the boyfriend. But Paris is a different matter. Paris is another continent. I will be out of my comfort zone. I hope I can do it. I want to be able to travel. I have this idea that if I travel my life will have been more worthwhile.

Our hotel in Paris overlooks Notre Dame. We have a balcony. It was quite a lot of money but we’re only staying 3 nights, and it should be amazing. They eat some weird stuff over there, but they have good cakes, so I won’t starve. Apparently they have self-cleaning toilets, which scares me a little. What if I it starts self cleaning when I’m in there?? I’m afraid I’m not very wordly wise. I’m working on it though. If all goes well in Paris, I would like to try New York, and Budapest, and I want to visit Transylvania, and Tokyo.

Girly Rant About Clothes

2007-10-04T06:49:00.001-07:00

A girl at work is wearing a cowboy shirt. Oh dear. It’s checked with little flowery patches here and there. I don’t really know how else to describe it. Ok, so it’s kind of fashionable, but it looks terrible. Shorts are fashionable too, but there’s no way in hell I would wear them, not with my fat sausage legs. The shops are awash with glittery tops and waistcoats and summery tops, despite it being October. Ok, so it’s not that cold at the moment, but it will be, and there’s not a decent jumper to be had anywhere in the UK. Skinny jeans are still around. They’ve been around for a while, and I can’t even get them past my ankles. Fortunately baggy jeans are also in the shops, so I can hide my fat ass in those very nicely.

Why all the fashion talk? I hear you ask. Well, it’s on my mind. I’m fed up of looking crap. I try to wear nice things, and I always look kind of smart, and I know how to wear tops that skim rather than cling, but even so, I look dated. I open up my wardrobe in the morning, and I hate everything I own. I want to throw everything away and start again.

It’s my way of coping you see. I can kid myself that everything would be ok if only I could look like I just stepped out of a magazine. The truth is, happiness is elusive, and my bulimic friend has been both fat and thin, and she was never happy. But the desire to be thin is so deeply imbedded in my brain, it’s an obsession. My weight has been creeping up lately, and I don’t know what to do. Exercise and stop eating crap are the obvious answers, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Unless you’ve been depressed I don’t think you could ever understand the total inertia that fills you, and the complete inability to make yourself move.

Brief Update

2007-10-03T07:42:00.001-07:00

My absence for the last couple of days has been down to extreme business at work. I’ve been desperately trying to hold on to my sanity, but it’s a losing battle. Went to the doctors and they upped my prozac dosage to 40mg. I’ve put on a bit of weight, but am confused because my clothes don’t feel any tighter, and I don’t think I look any different. I don’t have to do any more of those stupid seminars at work, because I filled out a feedback questionnaire after the last seminar and told the truth, and my boss pulled me aside and told me I didn’t have to go to the seminars if they were making me sick. I should feel relief, but the stress remains, and instead it is channeled into other things. It’s a lot harder to cope with simple things. I find myself worrying about things that, at one time, wouldn’t have bothered me at all. I told my doctor this and she suggested exercise. Which is fine, and I know it’s good, but what do you do if every day it’s a struggle to get out of bed, and easy tasks take hours to do, because your mind wanders?

Despite all that I have said, things are getting better. Yesterday was a dark day indeed. But today it was not so bad.

Hypnotherapy

2007-09-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

I am now on my second day of being codeine free. I’m not quite sure what triggered this abstinence but I’m glad I’ve done it. I feel a bit more awake. The feelings of stress are pretty raw, but I’m coping.

Oddly enough, I’m seriously considering hypnotherapy for the stress. I’ve been hypnotized before, a few years ago, because I used to get panic attacks if I went on holiday without my parents. (It’s a long story). Anyway, before the hypnotism I couldn’t even spend a few nights away from home, now I can happily spend weeks away from home with the boyfriend. I don’t know whether it was the hypnotism, or just the passing of time that cured me, but if by some chance it WAS the hypnotism, it should be able to help me out with the stress, by ‘re-conditioning’ my responses, and breaking old patterns.

When I was hypnotized before , I used to go to this lady’s house once a week and she used to take me to a special room decked out with crystals and candles and I used to recline on a comfy chair with a blanket over my legs, and she used to play soothing music very quietly. I had to close my eyes (which made me feel very vulnerable and self conscious) and listen to her. I wanted so bad for it to work, but there was a part of me that found the whole thing very silly, and the crystals and new age music was a bit OTT. But the fact remains, what I was afraid of then, I am not afraid of now.

While ‘hypnotized’ I was very conscious still, and aware of what she was saying, but time seemed to pass very quickly. An hour would go by in a flash.

SO, I have a number to ring. I have to somehow get a hypnotherapist to undo all my stress responses and put me back together again.

Films and Stuff

2007-09-26T04:40:00.000-07:00

Saw ‘Babel’ last night, about 3 years after everyone else. I don’t really know what I think of it yet. Good cinematography, good acting, but it failed to have a real impact. It covers illegal immigration, poverty, culture, language, loss, love, terrorism, disability, sexuality, grief…..basically I think the director wanted to make a film that covered pretty much everything, but I for one was left feeling pretty nonchalant. I kinda liked the deaf girl storyline, but the others were pretty bland. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the director, seems to like making films that try so hard to make a passionate point, but actually don’t, for me anyway. But then I am harder to please. To get any kind of emotional response out of me is like drawling blood from a stone. For me to like a film it has to be charming, quirky, moving, unique, stunning to look at, with a good soundtrack. That’s a pretty big ask.

The moral of this story, don’t bother with Babel, watch Amelie instead.

To appease the list-loving side of me, I have compiled a list of my favourite moving film moments. If you disagree, tough shit, it’s my blog, so there.

1. Amelie – the bit where Amelie gives the guy the tin box full of his childhood memorabilia. In fact, pretty much all of Amelie.
2. Crash – the bit where the woman is trapped in her car, and the man who saves her is the policeman who molested her earlier in the film. It forces you to see that people are capable of being both good and bad.
3. American History X – when Ed Norton starts to realize that black folk are not so bad, and that the hate he’s carried around with him has not helped him in any way.
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – the ending, where Winslet and Carey’s last memories of their relationship are wiped out, and they say goodbye, and vow to find eachother again.
5. Girl, Interrupted – Vanessa Redgrave gives her little speech towards the end. ‘what are your flaws, are they flaws…..if you indulge in them do you commit yourself to hospital, for life…’ (or something like that)
6. Lost in Translation – the ending, the goodbye scene in the streets of Tokyo.

That’s all I can think of right now. And sorry for the spoilers, and probable spelling mistakes.

Doomsday

2007-09-25T04:55:00.000-07:00

So my next work seminar is on 11th October. I’ve wasted many, many posts on here due to these seminars. They make me stressed, and when I get stressed I fall apart. I think about nothing but the seminar, I obsess over the seminar, I live and breathe the seminar, and when it is over, my body slumps and it takes many days to recover. I know it’s ridiculous, I am well aware that I am the only one in the office that obsesses so much. Everyone in this office is pretty fucked up, but I win the prize for ‘Most Bothered by Seminar.’ I long for an easy fix, but sadly, there isn’t one. At one time I would have employed denial as a coping mechanism, but it seems to have abandoned me. Now I seem to be comfort eating my woes away. Which obviously isn’t an ideal method. So much lovely food, but so much blubber.

Monday Morning

2007-09-24T04:53:00.001-07:00

Urgh. Sometimes I wake up and I’m all sweaty, like I’ve been running in my sleep. It’s a cold sweat. I don’t feel hot, just clammy. Which I’m sure will gross you out. But I like to be honest. So yeah, cold night sweats. Woke up feeling like shit. Got in late to work. Again. And now I’m sat here doing this, when I should be working. Oh well.

It was a hedonistic weekend of spending and eating, and driving fast with my New Young Pony Club album on full blast. I went to overtake some lady in a big car because she was driving VERY slowly, but she decided to speed up when she saw me trying to overtake. Gah. I hate it when people do that. And was I mature about it? Did I handle it with grace and dignity? No. I did not. I pulled a face at her in my mirror. It’s the kind of thing a small child would do to someone they didn’t like. I’m 25. I should know better.

Being 25, you’d think I’d be long past being ID’d. Not me. Buying an 18 certificate DVD, I was asked to produce ID, because evidently I look like I’m about 12. WTF? I have wrinkles around my eyes, and some worrying ones developing around my mouth. I feel older than my years.

New Young Pony Club - something else

2007-09-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Forgot to mention - they search your bags on the way into the venue, and I hadn't prepared for that. My bag was full of empty and not empty pill packets. There was an assortment of painkillers in there, and she shone her torch in, had a rummage around, and waved me on, like it was nothing, like it's perfectly normal to be packing a pharmacy's worth of Nurofen Plus in there. It's not illegal, but I would have thought she'd make some kind of remark, or show some kind of facial expression, but she didn't. Not a thing. She was even very friendly.

New Young Pony Club

2007-09-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I managed to shelve the depression and go to The Carling Academy (formally The Zodiac) in Oxford, to see the New Young Pony Club. It was just because the boyfriend likes them, and I thought I would hate it, but I didn’t. It was really very good. The venue is small but also only holds a small volume of people, so we weren’t pressed against other people and our view of the band wasn’t obstructed by tall people. NYPC were supported by the Ting Tings, who were also pretty good, but both were so loud I could feel the drum beats actually vibrate through my chest.

Anyway, I had fun. Yes fun. Sometimes depressed people have fun. Sometimes it is possible to laugh and be normal. For some reason there are brief reprieves, when you can almost forget yourself. I found my mind fully occupied with the music, and also my fellow gig goers. I love people watching. It was mostly young people/students, wearing a wide variety of fashionable clothing that I admired from my little corner. I felt odd, not part of the crowd. I have quite bad hair at the moment, due to my shocking lethargy and inability to actually get myself into a hairdressers. It’s long and lank and goes erratically wavy overnight. If I try to tie it back I look like a fat man, so I tend to keep it loose.

I suppose in my rather retarded way I’m trying to say I experienced something new, and it was good, and I must have been slightly over stimulated because last night I had a series of intricate and complex dreams.

This is a list of gigs I have been to:

1. PJ Harvey – Shepherds Bush Empire
2. Evanescence – Hammersmith Apollo
3. Lily Allen – Hammersmith Apollo
4. Regina Spektor – Oxford Town Hall
5. New Young Pony Club – The Carling Academy

Forthcoming:

6. Kate Nash – The Carling Academy
7. Arcade Fire – Alexandra Palace

2007-09-19T08:12:00.001-07:00

Once again I’m bored at work, with the nagging desire to take more codeine. I took 2 tablets this morning, and now I want more. It’s not that I NEED it, I would just really like to put a nice euphoric distance between myself and the tedium of work. I’ve run out of them you see. My options are thus – I go to the pharmacy over the road (very convenient) and buy some more, which risks more looks of disapproval, because I go in there quite a lot. Option number 2 is abstinence. I’m trying out option number 2 for now, and it’s home time soon, so I can distract myself with food and TV.

I’ve been very nihilistic recently. Not in the traditional way (by getting drunk and taking hard drugs) but in my own, sensible middle class way (taking codeine and eating lots and lots of junk food). In my own pathetic way I am going off the rails, and yet at the same time managing to hold down a job and outwardly appearing relatively normal. I’m full of contradictions.

Favourite photo of the day...

2007-09-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

Weekend

2007-09-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

This morning the nice Pakistani man in the newsagents asked me if I’d had a good weekend, and if I’d gone to the pub, to which I said something about the fact that I don’t drink. ‘Ah’ says he, ‘you don’t smoke and you don’t drink. You must be very healthy.’ How I laughed inside. How I smiled to myself. He has no idea.

I did have a good weekend actually, blissed out on codeine. There was one blip – I was spending the entire weekend with the boyfriend and we’d gone to see Ross Noble at the Oxford theatre on Saturday night, and I usually find him really funny, but on that night I couldn’t laugh as much. A nasty reminder that my depression has merely been tamed, not eradicated.

However, on Sunday the boyfriend and I went to Blenheim Palace. It’s quite a middle aged thing to do, but we were bored, and we didn’t know what else to do. And we fancied a walk, and what prettier place than Blenheim Palace? Anyway, they have a butterfly house, which is essentially a giant, hot greenhouse with lots of butterflies flying around. Many beautiful species of butterfly and flowers, and they let the butterflies fly free around the public, and one landed, briefly, on my head, which was actually a bit scary. They’re pretty to look at, but not so nice having them tangled in your hair. Anyway, it was almost a spiritual experience, watching these pretty butterflies flit around you, with lots of pretty flowers. There were even some exotic looking finches twittering away and flying about. Occasionally a butterfly would land on a plant, and didn’t seem to mind me staring at them.

Recovery?

2007-09-14T04:56:00.001-07:00

I feel quite a bit better today. I think because I’ve rested, and had a few good nights of sleep after the seminar. It’s amazing what rest and sleep can do. Yesterday I was sure my bad feelings would last forever, and that I was doomed to a life of misery. Turns out I was just tired. But when you get into those depressive mind-sets it’s easy to get caught in it and think it will last forever. But I expect I will feel that way again, and once again believe that it will never end, because my brain chemicals just don’t learn, no matter how much information I gather intellectually.

I had a really weird dream last night. I was kissing a boy I used to go to school with, and then suddenly a party started around us, and I had to leave, because I wasn’t cool enough to stay. I got in my car and drove to my nan’s, but they all looked very miserable and didn’t want me to be there. All the while I was wearing a pair of shoes I owned when I was 14.

All of this, I expect, is of no interest to you. I am aware my blog is very boring. To be depressed is very boring to the onlooker, because all we do is sleep and comfort eat, and occasionally cry. We don’t smile and we don’t talk much. If we’re lucky, they give us pills that make us numb, so we can go about our daily routines like the husks of the people we once were.

.....

2007-09-13T02:31:00.001-07:00

I’m not stressed anymore, or not excessively so, and I’m starting to recover from the horrible comedown from stress (headaches/lethargy etc) but I do have a problem. I used codeine during the stress and now it’s over I’m still using it. I feel like a junkie. Sometimes I take it then don’t think any more about it, just enjoy the effects. Now I take it and know that it’s not normal, that it’s becoming an issue, and then I wonder how long it will be before I begin to suffer for this dependence. Then I wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror and see the condition of my skin, and how pale and blotchy I look. I just look ill. My bag is full of empty painkiller packets.

I’m so sick of all of this.

The Seminar

2007-09-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

So I went to the seminar. I negotiated the tube system better than I thought I would. I was quite impressed that I didn’t get lost.

The actual seminar itself may have been quite good, unfortunately I had completely tuned out and could not concentrate on a single word that was said. I was in a constant state of anxiety, and so my mind was firmly in survival mode, i.e. trying to just stay composed while counting the minutes until the ordeal was over. I did not care about the seminar, I just wanted it to be over. For three hours my body was tense and my mind was racing.

Then, of course, it did end. I sweated through an uncomfortable tube journey home, breathing in the stale underground air. Then I caught a train with a girl from the seminar who also works in my office, and we bitched about how rubbish it all was. I was surprised I still had it in me to make conversation, but I did. Somehow.

Once home I collapsed in my room, coming down from the stress. Which meant a thumping headache and a weakness in my body. For many days I had been worrying about the seminar. My heart had been beating at double it’s usual pace, and I had that icy panicky feeling in me the whole while. So now I’m pretty tired and feel quite drained. The headache remains.

To a normal person, a seminar, in which minimal actual participation is involved, would not cause this kind of stress. For me, whatever chemicals make me stressed, seem to go into overdrive at the slightest thing. So the stress caused by the seminar is on a par with the stress another person would feel when they’re about to be executed, for example. My head is really fucked up. I can’t even pinpoint exactly what I was so worried about.

Anxiety

2007-09-07T03:52:00.000-07:00

I feel a little better today. Still quite on edge. I have this work seminar thing in London next Tuesday, and it’s making me nervous. Yesterday I just felt awful, like I wasn’t really in control.
Thanks to Boo Boo, your words were very helpful. I knew anxiety was part of depression, but I thought about it and I was a very anxious child too. I used to worry about everything, and when I didn’t have anything to worry about, I’d make stuff up. Stupid stuff. When I was 10 I used to have panic attacks at school because I felt trapped there. I used to pretend I was sick so I could go home. At school, on occasion, they used to make us do presentations to the rest of the class, and I used to worry about it weeks before I had to do it, while everyone else around me took it in their stride. So I think I have been anxious for most of my life, and then, at 19, my boyfriend at the time dumped me, and it pushed me into full blown depression. It was only the antidepressants that stopped the anxiety, at least in the beginning. I think as the years have passed my brain has found a way to make me anxious again, no matter what medication I throw at it.

But I never looked at it from that perspective before, that my depression could have been a result of years of anxiety and stress, and that breaking up with a boyfriend finally tipped me over the edge.

As for the codeine, I will take less of the stuff. It’s silly really. I frequently complain about feeling numb, but when the anxiety creeps in I long for the numbness.

Another Day in the Office

2007-09-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I had about an hour this morning where I could concentrate, but that has passed now, and I seem to have gone into a strange twilight zone where the concept of productivity doesn’t exist. I walked around for a bit, which meant going to the toilets, because unless I want to make a cup of tea in the tea room there’s nowhere else to go. When I came back I got the impression my co-workers had been talking about me. Maybe it’s paranoia. I can’t think of a reason why I’d provoke bitchy comments, but you never know. Maybe I look as out of it as I feel. I don’t think I’ve done anything too nuts today, even though I do feel very odd. Things seem slightly distorted. I’m tempted to just say I feel sick and go home. I really don’t feel that great today. I feel a bit stoned. I’ve just started to drink my second can of coke. Where would I be without diet coke? Fast asleep probably. I’m hoping it will perk me up a bit. God, I feel like any minute, in this office, amongst my sane co-workers, that I will just start doing something crazy.

Antidepressant Musings...

2007-09-05T03:29:00.000-07:00

I finished reading ‘Dearly Devoted Dexter’ last night. Dexter is a serial killer who also works for the police, and manages to lead a double life. He calls his desire to kill his ‘dark passenger,’ and he has the ability to detect other people who have the same evil tendencies. I thought about my own life, and how even though I’m not a serial killer (you’ll be relieved to know), I am depressed, or ‘mentally ill’ (a term which I hate). My ‘dark passenger’ doesn’t tell me to kill, but it tells me that I’m not good enough, and makes me see things in a bleaker, darker way, and I can accurately sense when someone else is like me. I don’t know if this applies to other depressed people, but I can tell when I look at someone whether they are like me, or have the potential to be like me.

Today I’m feeling a bit stressed. I have a seminar I have to go to, in London, and I will be expected to contribute a few opinions. There are many reasons why I am nervous about it. I remember a lovely 5 months back in 2002 that I spent under the influence of citalopram, the first antidepressant I ever tried. It worked fantastically for 5 months, and then the effects wore off. I think I experienced a rare ‘euphoric’ side effect to it at first. I felt very serene and I never used to worry about anything. How I wish I could experience that again. I’ve tried many, many other antidepressants and never recaptured that euphoria again. I wish my current 20mg prozac dosage would help me to stop worrying about this stupid seminar. Isn’t it strange how I make myself worry, yet I cannot make myself stop. I know to a person without mental illness I would seem weak and pathetic, but the stress and anxiety is just there, and it forces it’s way out whether you like it or not, and no amount of rationalization will get rid of it.

I’ve resorted to a new low now, which I’m reluctant to admit, but I want to be honest. I take codeine sometimes, which makes me feel serene for an hour or so. When it kicks in I get a relaxed feeling all over my body. I can actually feel it hitting me. And I feel ok. Codeine is an opiate. It’s a watered down version of morphine, which is a watered down version of heroin. So it’s like I’m taking a very, very mild heroin hit, in a perfectly legal way. I think in some countries it’s only available on prescription, but here in the UK you can buy it over the counter. I don’t recommend taking codeine to relieve stress, because it can be addictive. I know it’s a stupid thing to do. I only take one dose on particularly stressful days. Other people drink to forget, or they smoke dope, or snort cocaine. Me, I take a legal pain killer and I stick to the recommended dose. How very square of me. Don’t do drugs kids.

Prozac Update

2007-09-04T02:37:00.000-07:00

I think the Prozac is doing something good. Finally. I’ve noticed the edge has been shaved off of my negative emotions. It’s hard to explain. It’s as though any fear/anxiety I experience is padded with bubble wrap, so I still feel it, but not as much. Churchill called depression ‘his black dog’ (or something like that). So if I may steal his idea for a moment, I would say that my black dog has been given a leash, so that when it rears up and gets all aggressive, the leash pulls it back. The black dog is still there, it’s just been restrained. Perhaps it even has a muzzle. I’m not happy, I’m just not as raw and irrational, and I am not so locked in my own head. I’m more able to think about external things. In other words I’m not so self absorbed. I think antidepressants can make you feel a bit better, and help you to manage everyday life, but it’s very difficult to live without them. Impossible even.

Dexter

2007-09-04T02:36:00.001-07:00

Dexter. A brilliant TV series, in my humble opinion. It’s dark, macabre, and quite different to the bland, saccharine stuff around at the moment. I’m surprised they were even allowed to make it, due to all the blood and murder. But I’m glad they did. Even though they banished it to an obscure sky channel here in the UK. It features Michael C. Hall, of Six Feet Under fame (I love Six Feet Under too). All in all Dexter is a quality production, and based on the books by Jeff Lindsay, ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ and ‘Dearly Devoted Dexter’ and I believe a third in the series in coming soon. It’s odd because the books are not as good as the TV series, usually it’s the other way around. The books are kind of like cheap thrillers, keeping you hooked. I read Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a very short space of time. They don’t require a lot of concentration. They’re light reads. But the concept is very, very original. I’m hungry for the second season of Dexter on TV. If they ever show it here. I LOVE it. I love stuff that’s a bit different and risqué. Instead of buying a different and risqué show, UK Channel 4 opted to show ‘Brothers and Sisters.’ What a piss weak programme that is. If you like it, fair enough. I just don’t. It bores me almost to tears. It makes me want to stamp on the TV. It stars Rachel Griffiths, who also played Brenda in Six Feet Under. How she could go from SFU to Brothers and Sisters is beyond me. It makes me want to cry. And Ally McBeal is in it too. Looking slightly less anorexic, but not exactly healthy. Grrr. Don’t even get me started on Ugly Betty. A good concept, but dragged out for far, far too long. I think it took about 6 months to get through the first season. I’d lost interest by the second episode. Ok, so lots of people like Ugly Betty. It’s light entertainment. I think my concentration is so poor that I need a TV series to really grab me and shock me to hold my attention. Dexter does that. It build and builds until the final episode where you’re practically foaming at the mouth to see what happens. Michael C. Hall plays a very good sociopath.

Some Musings from the Weekend

2007-09-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

i

I’m sure Facebook is a convenient way to keep in touch with old friends and stuff, but for me, yesterday, as I perused the list of people I used to go to school with, it was traumatic. Some people had become unrecognizable whilst others looked exactly the same. Some had spent a lot of time and effort creating a photoshopped, airbrushed, perfectly posed photograph, obviously needing some kind of validation. And who am I to critisise? I would do the same. I’d want to show all those fuckers I went to school with that I had become successful, or at least, try to project a veneer of success.

I think I must have looked up everyone I’d ever known, driven by the kind of curiousity that makes you look at car wrecks or ask to see people’s scars. Suddenly, at my fingertips, was the power to reacquaint myself with the people from my past. I don’t in actuality think I would create a profile for myself, because I quite like hiding. My life is small and mostly manageable. Throwing it open to people from my past is a scary prospect. I don’t think I’ll torture myself by looking at Facebook any more. Or MySpace. Or Friends Reunited. I must learn to create my own life without comparing it to others. I must not look back.

ii

My friend Suzanne is going through a stressful time. So on Saturday night we had a takeaway and watched a film I had brought from home. ‘Garden State’ – the tale of a man who had been on Lithium since he was 9 and at 26 decides that there was never anything wrong with him so he comes off the meds, and slowly learns to re-discover life and love and breaks free of the numbness. A rather sweet, but unrealistic film. I thought Suzanne might like it. It’s quite a hopeful film. And like it she did. She liked it so much her eyes were puffy from crying. I felt somewhat virtuous that I had given her the gift of ‘Garden State.’ I felt I had done a good thing. But then I though the smugness from doing the good deed eradicated any good kalma or brownie points for selflessness. It’s not a good or selfless deed if you feel pleased with yourself for doing it. I do like to make people happy, but partly because it makes me feel happy. That’s not selfless is it? I don’t think I’m a bad person, but I’m not entirely good either.

iii

My cat, Ben, who is ginger and lovely and who swishes his tail like a dog, broke his paw. His back-right paw. It puffed up to twice it’s normal size and he got really grumpy, understandably. The vet gave him injections last night, and is doing an x-ray today, as I type this. Obviously I’m not typing this from the waiting room, I’m at work. Dad had to do the honours. I know when other people talk about their cats it’s boring, but it’s only a short paragraph, so bear with me. I’m nearly done. Ben loves good food and the outdoors. Neither of which he was allowed to enjoy last night. He was under house arrest, and he hated it. All night he scratched the walls and wailed. Today he’ll be stoned out of his little head due to the anaesthetic used to achieve the x-rays. Poor Ben.

Lunch - Post Mortem

2007-08-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

I sat in a car, along with 4 of my colleagues, driving to the pub. I was sat in the back seat with the aging rocker man leaning on my shoulder. We drove down a bumpy country road for what seemed liked hours, packed together like sardines. It was quite uncomfortable, I can tell you.

But the lunch itself was actually ok. We went to this pub that was many hundreds of years old, the oldest pub in England, apparently. There were beams, stain glass windows, and an assortment of swords on the wall, and antique paraphernalia dotted about the place. All the furniture looked about a hundred years old too. I always find old old places like that pretty creepy. Creepy but interesting.

http://www.rsoe.co.uk/

That’s a link to it. The Royal Standard of England. You know, just in case you’re interested. I like to spice up my blog from time to time.

A Rant About Lunch

2007-08-31T03:30:00.001-07:00

Fear. One of the most powerful human emotions, designed to keep us safe. And it does. But it also keeps us from living as fully as we should. And right now, it is hounding me. Not because I’m in danger, not because I have a job interview, but because I have to go to the pub at lunch with my work people. In my world, going to lunch with the people you work with ignites a flicker of fear. I seem to have a BIG fear of the unknown, and this lunch contains many unknowns. And there will be at least 12 people there. So there are complexities such as where to sit, what to order, how to order, what to say, how little I can get away with saying, etc. I’ve often thought I might have AvPD (avoidant personality disorder). Look it up on google, and you will see a nice little description of me. I’ve never been formally diagnosed. As far as my doctor is concerned I’m just a depressive. Anyway, my avoidant tendencies mean that going to lunch with lots of people is a stressful experience, whereas your average person would be looking forward to a nice meal. I agreed to the lunch because someone is leaving, and I don’t want to appear aloof, even though I am. I KNOW why I do all of this. I know exactly why I am the way I am. It’s fear of critisism. If I keep myself to myself and never say a word no one can find fault with me, and if they do, they are wrong, because they are not seeing the real me. If other people critisise me then I must be as bad as I fear I am.

So there you are. Knowing why I do things doesn’t help. I’m still scared of this lunch. Before medication I would have picked at my food and been too self conscious to eat anything much, but now I can eat fine, I just zone out and go quiet. My latest coping mechanism is zoning out, retreating into myself to so that I become an eating husk of a person.

I suppose it all sounds very crazy. It IS crazy. I am crazy. I live in a strange world where the rules are different. Big things do not excite me, small things do. Big things scare me, but the little details scare me more. Everything that people find easy I find hard. A lot of it is genetics. A distant relative of mine jumped off her roof and died, a rather large percentage of my family are on some kind of antidepressant, my auntie had a nervous breakdown. My mum had post natal depression. I am ambidextrous (write with left hand, do everything else with right hand). I don’t know if the hand thing has anything to do with anything, but it’s kind of weird, don’t you think?

Dog Poo

2007-08-30T03:21:00.001-07:00

If you’re of an overly sensitive or easily disturbed disposition please don’t read this. But if, like me, you can tolerate the sicker things in life, read on.

My work colleague, lets call her Deborah, had dog poo smeared all over her windshield this morning. ALL over her windshield, so that it got everywhere and made the car smell. She came in late this morning fuming, understandably. She thinks it was a random act done by the local youths who hang about near her house, but I feel it’s more calculated, because obviously a lot of effort has gone into committing such a sick act. She says she has no obvious enemies. She’s really upset.

I’m not good socially. I never know what to say, especially when someone is bursting with rage because someone smeared dog poo all over their car. I have tried though, tried to be sympathetic, but what can you say really? I’m just about to take her to the shop over the road for some chocolate. Sometimes chocolate is the only solution. Aren’t I nice?

I do get overly emotionally involved when others are in crisis. I have this desire to make people better. If I can do that I feel better about myself. So my motives are not completely selfless. I think I would have liked a job in a hospital, only trouble is blood and needles make me feel faint, and literally cleaning up vomit and shit is repulsive. I don’t think I could do that.

Needless to say I haven’t eaten anything yet. Images of vast amounts of poo are haunting me.

Cluster Maps

2007-08-28T03:51:00.001-07:00

I seem to be spreading like a virus throughout the world. United States, Several European countries, Australia, even India! I’m pretty sure someone from Venezuela too. But I could be wrong, I was never very good at geography. My Clustr Map informs me that many of those people only visited once, but it’s still very interesting that I have managed to spread my tales of woe around the world.

Please note that I am not a very good representative for my country. I’m not a typical product of the UK.

The Weekend

2007-08-28T03:07:00.001-07:00

Saturday

A 90 mile drive to Coventry to pick up my new car. With my dad in the passenger seat. The pick up went fine, but on the return journey, in the spiffing new car, the petrol was running dangerously low, and we had to go into Warwick to find a petrol station. I panicked, as I was trying to get used to a new car, and also trying to find a petrol station in the middle of a town I’d never been in. I freaked out. In the end, we got some petrol, but dad had to drive us both home. I got stupidly stressed about it. I think I was overly tired too, because driving for long distances is more draining that you think. Dad now thinks I’m crazy.

Sunday

Weighed myself. 11st 8lbs. I nearly had a heart attack and throughout the day I weighed myself about a dozen more times, convinced that the scales were wrong. Then I weighed myself again the next day and I was 11st 4lbs. Phew! But WTF is going on? Is it normal to fluctuate by 4lbs? Both times I weighed myself in the morning. Also, when I weighed myself a few weeks ago, I was 11st 5lbs, and I was killing myself with diet food. And then I got sick of denying myself so I stuffed my face, and promptly lost a pound. My body is so fucking weird. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.

Bank Holiday Monday

I had to meet the boyfriend’s sister and her husband for the first time. I’m terrible at meeting people. I go very quiet, even more so than usual. It didn’t help that the sister and her husband were ridiculously successful. Both London lawyers with a passion for everything. They ran a marathon on Sunday, and in the evening went to a Rolling Stones gig. They cycle and keep very fit and travel a lot and read high brow books. They were also ridiculously positive and upbeat. I had to work very hard not to appear dark and depressing. There is a massive gulf between them and me. But even so, I think I did a fairly good job of appearing normal. And they aren’t bad people. They’re nice. But I got the distinct impression that they had never encountered even a day of mental unease in their lives, they’re very practical people, not very introspective. I think I would scare them if they knew what I’m really like.

Favourite photo of the day...

2007-08-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Baby Therapy

2007-08-24T04:26:00.000-07:00

Over the years a number of things have held me together. Recently, a new addition. My auntie’s baby. A three month old boy who is the most adorable little thing I’ve ever seen. Many, many things that are supposed to make you happy have no effect on me. A lot of my time is spent feeling numb and medicated. But very occasionally I find these little things that manage to break through the haze. My auntie’s baby. Holding him is the single most pleasurable thing I have experienced in a long time. I don’t mean to get overly sentimental, but holding a little life in my arms is very moving. Being a woman of 25, I suppose my body is desperate to make use of my womb, and my primal instincts are kicking in. Whatever it is, this baby has somehow managed to sneak past the prozac, dodge the rancid little puddles of negativity in my brain, and raise a smile, and a fleeting feeling of true happiness.

Last night I visited the auntie, and as I approached her house, I saw, through her patio doors, a cot with the little baby kicking away under his blankets, looking up at the mobile above his head, which, in the dark, glowed blue and purple, and probably played a tune, which I obviously couldn’t hear. For reasons unknown to me it was the nicest thing I’d seen in a long time. He looked very peaceful.

It’s ridiculous how broody I am. But I also know that right now is too soon. I don’t think prozac would exactly agree with a developing fetus. Not to mention post natal depression. I can only hope that one day I will be in a better position.

There is a kind of therapy that involves going to a stable and looking after and stroking horses. But I think it would be better to have a room full of babies. Well, it would certainly help me……

Office Folk

2007-08-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

The aging rocker: used to be in quite a successful band in the early nineties. Still gigs occasionally, but somehow ended up working here. Often grumpy. Easily annoyed. Always wears black. Thinks he’s more high brow than he actually is.

The office geek: one schizophrenic episode in uni. Suspiciously close to his mother. Has encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons, Monty Python, Star Trek, and many other sci-fi type films/programmes. Eats with mouth open. Never had a girlfriend. Wears beige. Is very tall and trousers always too short.

The jesters: 2 childlike twenty-somethings with identical sense of humour. Very funny. Don’t take work too seriously. One verges on being a geek, the other verges on being a chav. Both intelligent. Double act. The office entertainment.

The simpleton: once asked me how to spell ‘orange,’ very slow, tall and wide. Likes football and drinking.

The professional: serious about work. Doesn’t talk much, but whispers to herself constantly. Has whole whispered conversations with herself. Likes paper. Always preferring to print everything out and put it in files for no apparent reason. Sometime argues with husband on the phone.

The boss: chain smoking manager. Good at job, but grammar very poor. Has about a hundred guinea pigs. Calls them her babies.

The Big Man: some kind of manager, does something very vague with budgets. Spends most of his time wandering around talking to people. No clear job role. Ignores anyone who is not a manager. Looks disgusted all the time. Bad teeth.

Is this too cruel? Probably. But I haven’t gotten to me yet.

Me: quiet person with some kind of mental disorder. Likes to rummage around in bag for painkillers. Eats a lot. Drink too much coke. Spends lots of time on internet, generally slacking, and avoids talking on the phone. Arrives late. Complains about air conditioning. Sighs a lot. Doesn’t smile very much.

So there you have it. I feel dead guilty about this. Not sure whether I should post it. What if I am discovered? Pretty unlikely, but it may happen. And they’d do what – fire me? Yes please.

People are quite fascinating really. I work in an office, doing boring stuff, but I am surrounded by these strange people. I am strange too. I fit in more than I think I do.

Stressed Eric

2007-08-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

It’s freezing. In August. I’m wearing a jumper. In August. I’ve gone nuts and gotten engaged, and the whole of the UK is joining me in a crazy unpredictable summer of madness. I keep dreaming of bad rocker boy from my past. It’s getting ridiculous now. STOP THE MADNESS. I’ve got so much on my mind and I look so awful today. I’m wearing stupidly dark eye make up smeared all over my eyes, like I put it all on blindfolded. Urgh.

1) I have to drive 60 odd miles to Coventry this Saturday
2) I have to meet the boyfriend’s sister on Monday
3) I have to go to another stupid seminar at work in the middle of London
4) I’m still about 20lbs from being a healthy weight
5) I’m engaged before I’m ready, and will have to move to a different town and get a new job in a year or so

I could probably list more. But I won’t, because I’m freaking myself out. It all seems too much. The prozac has kicked in to some extent. But not nearly enough. I don’t expect it to do any more than it has. I feel so stressed. I always get stressed when I have too much to think about. I’m tempted to hide away in my room for the rest of my life and not talk to anyone. PLUS there’s a woman in the office with the most foul smelling perfume. It’s giving me a headache. And the aging rocker who sits to my left is in yet another grumpy mood, which makes me nervous.

I am aware this blog is dull and depressing, and filled with me mostly moaning. I’m like a less interesting Elizabeth Wurtzel. I’m like Sylvia Plath minus the talent. I’m like Eeyore minus the cuteness.

Engagement

2007-08-21T04:41:00.001-07:00

I’m engaged, and I will be getting a new car on Saturday.

Both events should be exciting, but I am not excited. Yes, I am a brat, a selfish horrible person, but I cannot get excited, only scared. I seem to have some mechanism in my brain that blocks appropriate emotional responses. I am numb at Christmas and on my birthdays.

I have never felt that the boyfriend aka fiancé was ‘the one.’ I love him as much as I am able and I think we work well together. He is the only person I have ever encountered that doesn’t snore, or make any noise when he sleeps. He likes to do the same things as me. We agree on most things. We want the same things. He is understanding of my moods and tolerates me as the far from perfect being that I am. I’ve never met a man before that I could see myself living with. With my fiancé it is so easy. So now I have a very pretty ring on my finger, and a feeling of fear in my heart. I am 25 but feel too young, not quite ready for this. But the wedding will not be for a few years, and we have to see if we can live together first. There is no certainty here. My auntie broke two engagements in her time, before finally finding the right man. One of my co-workers broke an engagement. I am not trapped by the pretty ring, the yellow cubic zirconia white gold ring that squeezes my finger. Quite fitting that it’s a synthetic diamond really. Since the engagement itself doesn’t feel real, and I am not 100% certain that it will result in a wedding. I look at that ring now and I don’t know quite how I got here, to this point.

The parents were shocked. Everyone else seemingly pleased for me, wanting to know details, when in actual fact I want to keep it quiet, to pretend it’s not happening. I don’t want a party or presents. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Because I don’t want to end up alone? Because I don’t want to hurt him? Because I am afraid of change? I never have liked to rock the boat. I never like to cause a fuss. This engagement is a big deal to everyone else. But I would rather process my new status quietly for a while.

The new car is a Toyota Yaris. I have graduated from a Nissan Micra, the car of the elderly, to a Yaris, another car favoured by the elderly. But I’ve never been concerned with style, only reliability. And Japanese cars are reliable. It has a CD player and air conditioning, which my old car didn’t. It goes faster and smoother and is in general a more enjoyable drive.

All I’ve heard all weekend is ‘are you excited?’ ‘why aren’t you excited?’ Which make it harder to feel anything. And I’ve been thinking about a bloke I used to know, he’s in a band, a bad boy. I know why. I know I’m fantasizing about other men as a way of not thinking about the engagement, and how scared I am about it. I am very scared. I don’t like change. Things are shifting and I don’t like it.

Chocolate Chinese Cats

2007-08-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

I feel a bit better today! I don’t want to jinx myself by declaring that I am all better now. But there are improvements. Small, easily missed things.

I just ate a piece of dark chocolate, proffered to me by a colleague. It tasted fucking awful by the way. Really bitter. I like my chocolate milky. They say, in the dieting world, that you must swap milk for dark chocolate, because you’ll eat less. Hmmm, maybe because dark chocolate tastes like shit? I’m a fan of the more politically incorrect Nestle chocolate. It’s a bit richer than Cadburys. White chocolate is ok, but only in small doses. Milk chocolate is the daddy.

So, a square of icky chocolate has been the highlight of my day. It certainly wasn’t the IT people who messed around on my PC today but didn’t fix the problem, it certainly wasn’t the middle aged rocker who sits next to me in the office, and who made fun of me for reading trashy girly magazines (he thinks he’s so fucking high brow). No, you’re just a grumpy old man who used to be in a band. The Metro IS NOT high brow you wanker. Grrr.

There is a possibility that things may improve however. I’m going to see the boyfriend in Oxford tonight, and we shall be eating noodles. I miss his kitties, particularly the fat one that used to sit on me. (see earlier entry – bf had to give kitties back to ex wife). This fat cat didn’t respond when you tried to stroke him, or call him. But when I was watching TV he’d just appear from nowhere and sit on my lap, and nothing would move him. Any affection was on his terms, not mine. Is it stupid to miss a cat? Probably.

My favourite photos today...

2007-08-15T07:12:00.001-07:00

...courtesy of the BBC website. Not my own doing unfortunately.

???

2007-08-14T03:49:00.001-07:00

The company I work for has sunk to a new low. We currently have a giant pink foam exclamation mark in the corner of the office. It has a face, and is wearing a nappy. It’s part of project Eureka, a scheme that encourages employees to think of new ideas to streamline processes. The nappy represents the infancy of the scheme. The pink exclamation mark is a mystery to me. I don’t know what else to say, I really don’t. Note the evil expression on it's face. If you ever consider working in an office, my advice is, don't. Work with animals instead. Help the sick and injured. Get your hands dirty building something. DON'T work in an office.

My Best Friend

2007-08-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

My best friend, lets call her Suzanne, is the best person I have ever met. Had she been a man, I would have married her. We met while at school, but didn’t really bond properly until sixth form. It was around the time of sixth form that I began to deteriorate. It was the first time I considered suicide, and that being dead was preferable to being alive. I think it was something to do with the fact that school was over, and I had to decide what to do next, and I couldn’t. I had no idea. I tried to imagine a future and all I could see was a blank nothingness, and I had no faith in my own abilities. I was weak and fragile from 5 years of schooling, and being constantly teased for one thing or another. I wasn’t fat or ugly, I was just quiet, and for some reason, in life, being quiet is the worst personality trait there is. It gets you nowhere.

Anyway. Sixth form. Suzanne and I got talking. We discovered we were quite similar, and we were scared of the same things. We were both lost, and as our fellow classmates filled out UCAS forms and discovered clubs and drinking, Suzanne and I shrank away, withdrew, stopped dead. Everyone around us was developing in a nice normal way, growing up and having fun. We had halted to a stop. Pubs and clubs seemed unimportant to me. My other friends seemed stupid, and shallow. They tried to get me to join them but I found it so hard to be around them. They seemed so carefree, and I felt like I had a million things to worry about, and that I had a million faults, and I became inundated with negative thoughts. Suzanne and I would talk in depth about how shitty things were, and how terrible we were, and we read books like ‘The Bell Jar’ and ‘Girl, Interrupted’ and an assortment of psychology textbooks. We thought we were deep. We grew closer and closer and set ourselves apart from everyone else. People started calling us ‘the sisters’ and teased us about being lesbians. The truth is we were both miserable for no apparent reason.

Then I saw marks on her wrists. Cuts. I knew exactly what they were. I never told anyone. I talked with her about it, and that was it. For many years I hated myself for not telling her parents and getting her help.

Then she took an overdose.

From that point onwards we were different. She had crossed a line. I had thought about suicide but never done anything with those thoughts. I began to see that Suzanne was further gone than me. But still we clung together and skived off of school and lost interest in everything but the illness. She failed her A-levels, I got a B in art but the rest of my results were poor.

Out in the real world, I got a job, got a boyfriend, started to perk up. Suzanne went to a psychiatric hospital and took a myriad of medications and even had a course of ECT. (I would see her the night before every appointment, and every time she would say ‘oh, that’s a nice coat’) her memory was shot, and she was fading.

I lost the boyfriend, and sank into a depression greater than anything I had ever known. I lost a year of my life. I have no memory of the year after the break up. All I know is that I went to the doctor and I was prescribed my first SSRI. It was 2002.

Since then much has happened. Suzanne goes into hospital quite frequently. She never got better, despite medication, and therapy. She even developed bulimia. They thought at one point she had borderline personality disorder, but they keep changing their mind. I stay on my medication, suffer the occasional bought of proper depression, maintain a restless, generally dissatisfied existence. Suzanne and I are still close. I see her quite a lot and we’ve developed into something less destructive. Before we wallowed in the depression, now we’re more supportive. We laugh. We enjoy each other’s company. From reading this you may think we’re always miserable. We’re not. There’s a certain degree of gallow’s humour. When I spend time with other people, I see their faults, I am easily annoyed. With Suzanne I accept her totally and agree with the things she says, as though she were a sister. Of course, it’s hard. She has scars all over her body, and there are numerous medical problems due to the bulimia. But the thing with mental illness is that it’s not deliberate.

It’s a strange tale. I don’t know if we’ll ever reach a point where we’ll both be able to say that we are happy and settled. But then I don’t suppose anyone else can either.

Prozac Nation

2007-08-10T07:29:00.000-07:00

Day one on Prozac. I woke up this morning feeling clammy, as though I’d been jogging in my sleep. Or as though the drug had got hold of me and had spent several hours shaking me violently. It’s nothing new. All this stuff is expected. I could write a book about depression if only I had the concentration or sufficient mental ability.

I’ve been on the internet doing the ‘MoodGym’ – a CBT type ‘course’ to ‘unwarp’ my thinking. It’s mostly quite patronizing, but vaguely informative. My GP recommended the site. So I had a look. I’m bored with it already. It has many pearls of wisdom, for example, WUTIWUF (what you think is what you feel). No shit.

I’m going to try taking 5-HTP and Chromium supplements. They might do something. At this point I’m even considering hypnotherapy.

I made a real effort to talk to my work colleagues today. This last week I’ve been mostly mute and introverted, but today I felt able to contribute a few sentences, a few smiles. Maybe soon I’ll be laughing.

GP Appointment

2007-08-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

My doctor would not prescribe me Wellbutrin. She prescribed me Prozac instead. Which pissed me off, because my weight is a big issue at the moment, and I don’t want to get any fatter. Bloody SSRIs. There’s a profound message in all of this, dear reader. You cannot have your cake and eat it. It is too much to expect a depression free existence along with a small bottom. The GP also recommended a few ‘helpful books’ for me to read.

What I really need is a psychiatrist. But the NHS waiting list is 2 years. You can be seen straight away if you go private, but then you have to pay over £100 a session, and I don’t have that kind of money. So what is a mentally ill person to do? Read ‘helpful books’ apparently. And exercise. Oh yes. Exercise. Everyone suggests exercise for depression. I did circuit training for a while. I did aerobic workout videos. Did I feel any better? No, I didn’t. Did I feel all those happy endorphins? No, I did not.

On a completely different subject, I had a good idea yesterday. I formulated a sort-of-plan. Eventually I will move to Oxford with the boyfriend. He will move out of his tiny rented accommodation, and we will buy a modest flat in a nice area, and we will have cats. I will then try to get a job in The Ashmolean, which is an art and architecture museum. I looked on their website and they have a vacancy at the moment. I love the idea of working behind the scenes cataloguing and documenting all the exhibits. They may have another vacancy by the time I decide to move to Oxford, and if they don’t, there are plenty of other museums in Oxford. The place is full of them.

Favourite blog of the day...

2007-08-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.kittyhell.com/2006/08/

The Crying Game

2007-08-06T02:46:00.000-07:00

A VERY strange thing happened last night. I craved a smoothie. I’ve never craved anything healthy in my life. So I am happy. Now all I have to do is work on the simultaneous craving for chocolate.

I hate to talk medication again, but I have to. It’s something I really need to get sorted. I’ve decided to somehow persuade my GP to prescribe Wellbutrin (Buprion), because I’ve read up on it and it doesn’t cause weight gain, if anything it causes weight loss – hurrah! The sertraline is doing fuck all except blow me up into some fat lethargic blob. So I cut my dose in half, and braced myself for withdrawal. It’s been a week now and I’m not dead, so that’s good. Nor have I been suicidal. But yesterday I cried for the first time in ages. Yes. Real emotions are starting to break through. I’m starting to become human again, but I don’t like it. I cry at anything now. I cry at adverts on the TV. I know it’s stupid to mess with meds like that, but I just wanted to see if I could do without it, and the grass is always greener. When you’re on meds you want to feel stuff properly again, and when you’re off meds you want the oblivion again. I can’t win. So I’ve decided to try Wellbutrin.

The boyfriend moved into a new flat over the weekend. I helped him carry stuff. I walked up and down stairs so many times my legs still feel wobbly two days later. It’s a nice place, it’s just very small. We snuck in his 2 cats (you’re not supposed to keep pets at the new flat), but they caused such a noise and they used to like running around, and the flat isn’t really big enough for that, so he has to get his ex wife to take them. I cried a lot over the weekend. I cried when I stood in his old empty flat because it was a nice place and we’d had some good memories there. I cried when I heard the cats had to go. I cried when we’d unpacked some of the boxes, because this new place just isn’t the same as the old one and it feels strange. I don’t even have to live there. I don’t know why the hell I was so upset. But I was, and I cried like some odd fleshy fountain.

There’s panic too. I’m panicking about everything. How do regular people cope? I have the GP appointment on Wednesday. If I can just last that long I’ll be ok.

Broody, depressed and sick

2007-07-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

I have a cold. A nasty cold. I thought at first my spaced out feelings were related to mental weirdness but then I got a sore throat, and then a runny nose, and then popping noises in my ears. I didn’t sleep at all last night. All I remember is staring out of my window until the daylight slowly emerged.

I’m pretty convinced now that the meds are not working, and I’m pretty sure my weight is creeping up again. I look very chubby, but I’m too scared to weigh myself.

I have been feeling very sorry for myself lately. I can’t tell whether it’s justified or not. All I ever seem to do is moan.

I have found several things to help me out though. One being jigsaw puzzles. Once you get over the shame of doing something so decidedly middle aged it’s actually a very absorbing and effective way of tuning out all the bad things. My second coping strategy is spending time with my auntie’s 9 week old baby. He’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and very absorbing too. I spend hours trying to get a smile. The last time I saw him he spent a lot of time smiling, and trying to talk to me. So far just garbled noises, but he’s trying. He has cried with me too, but for some bizarre reason this can be stopped by either bumping him gently up and down, or taking him for a walk around the garden.

So there you are.

Mid-Twenties Crisis

2007-07-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

I used to think it was impossible to die from boredom. Today I have re-evaluated that belief, and come to the conclusion that yes, you can die from boredom, and that I may only have a few hours left. My job is killing me.

I am a very strange girl. I fit nowhere. I am not corporate, I am not motivated. I don’t like talking on the phone. I am not confident or stable enough to take on managerial roles, or roles that mean I have to deal with people, or lead people. I am creative, but not creative enough. I cannot make a living out of painting or photography, for I am an amateur. I don’t like caring for people. I’m socially retarded. I feel wobbly when I see blood.

My current job is in market research. The responses from open ended questions in questionnaires are transferred to computer, where I use our coding software to look at these responses, group similar responses together, give these common responses a code number, then send the data off to our data analysis department, where they turn all my numerical data into tables so that the client can see and learn what the people have to say about their product. I use email rather than phone, so I don’t have to talk to anyone I don’t want to, and I hide behind a computer screen all day, and am left to just get on with it. It’s perfect for me in many ways, but also boring as hell, and the pay isn’t great. The people I work with are drifters like me. We’re all in our mid-twenties, moderately intelligent, but not career minded. It’s a place people come to when they don’t know what else to do. It’s a stop-gap between school/university, and a proper job/career. I fear I may be stuck here forever.

I do have one alternative. The boyfriend wants me to move in with him, in Oxford. He earns a lot more than I do, and I can just see myself living in his shadow, churning out a couple of kids, doing part time work. It would be so easy to make do with that. So long as I could ignore the nagging feeling that I was missing out on other men, and other possibilities.

I turn 25 tomorrow. That’s the reason for this rant. My life thus far has been uneventful compared to others. I’ve been depressed for most of it, and numbed by medication for longer than my GP thinks healthy. Such a waste. Someone I went to school with is now a policeman. How depressing.

Favourite Picture of the Day

2007-07-24T08:14:00.001-07:00

News and Stuff

2007-07-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

Art in Action is held every year at Waterperry Gardens in Oxford. I had planned to go on Friday, but the rain was so bad that I went on Saturday instead. Like many things in life, it was a bit disappointing. I’ve seen it all before. All the cars are parked in fields, and mine got stuck in the mud, and the army guys that were directing the traffic had to push my car because the wheels were spinning and I was going nowhere. Mud was flying everywhere. I was so embarrassed. I had to drive home with mud splatters decorating my car. Also a degree of embarrassment was experienced because my boyfriend and my best friend were both there, and they met for the first time. It was a little awkward, but I’m glad it happened. Maybe I’ll tell you about my best friend one day. She’s my only real friend, all the other people in my life, apart from my boyfriend, are filler, and they don’t really know me, or care about me. I go largely unnoticed.

The whole of England is in danger of flooding. So far my little corner of the country remains relatively flood free, but the newspapers have been hinting at worse weather to come. The floods have come as close as Berkshire. Too close for comfort really. There’s this terrible, dark, horrible side to me that wonders how much this is going to cost the country, and how it will effect me. It’s going to cost billions.

I am now 11st 4lbs, possibly even 11st 3lbs. It’s taking longer than I would like, but at least I’m losing. I’m basically starving myself. Fruit and veg as often as I can manage, no chocolate, smaller meals, no pudding. Lots of water, lots of smoothies, lots of fruit juice. My body is complaining. I feel hungry all the time, and feel quite lethargic, but I am eating. I am eating the right things. Why do I feel like I haven’t eaten for a week? When will my body get used to this? I keep getting headaches too.

I can’t tell if the depression has subsided to a satisfactory level. I have a GP appointment tomorrow to get more tablets, and review my situation. I’m sick of thinking about it, I’m sick of being constantly bombarded with small trifling symptoms.

Hurrah!

2007-07-18T04:58:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling quite perky today. I can account for this strange and alien emotion because today, on the scales, I have lost a pound, so now I am 11st 5lbs, not the terrifying and unthinkable 11st 7lb monster I was at the weekend. So I’ve lost 2lbs in about 5 days, which is pretty good, considering I’ve done no exercise at all, just cut out a lot of the crap I was eating. It also means the drugs aren’t making me put on weight. If they’d fucked up my metabolism, I wouldn’t be losing weight at all. In actual fact, the drugs are helping me out a little. I no longer crave the chocolate and bad stuff. For some reason I remain unmoved by them. I think when I got really low I just comfort ate. And ate and ate and ate. Sertraline/lustral/Zoloft/whatever you want to call it, has been known to make people lose weight initially, then balloon. I’m going to have to keep a close eye on myself. I’ve read a number of terrifying reports on the internet about weight gain on sertraline. But then I’ve also read reports about weight loss on the drug too. I should just be aware and vigilant, and not pay too much attention to the side effects other people have experienced, because everyone is different.

I had a dream about a little white kitten last night. I bought one and took it home, and it was crawling all over me. It was cute. They tell you you may experience strange and vivid dreams on antidepressants. Not me. I dream of kittens.

A Slight Improvement

2007-07-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

For a few days now I’ve been more articulate, and a little more animated. I still feel a bit out of it but I have noticed a slight improvement in mood. Negative thoughts still exist, and a general pessimistic attitude, but on the whole I have noticed a difference, and my life is a fraction easier to handle. I seem to have put on 3lbs seemingly overnight, but then I have been eating rubbish for ages now, it was bound to catch up with me. 11st 7lbs is BAD for a 5ft 5 person. I weighed myself a few days ago and it had gone down to 11st 6lbs, but even so, that’s enough to cause a full blown depressive episode in itself. So now I’m controlling my calorie intake, and trying to cope with almost constant hunger (which could be a side effect of the sertraline). I’m terrified I’ll keep expanding, that the price I pay for sanity is obesity. I feel like I have no control over my weight. If I keep getting bigger despite a calorie controlled diet then I’ll change meds. I was thin before all of this antidepressant shit. I’m worried I’ve messed up my metabolism.

I’d be happy as a UK size 12. I do like having curves, as to me it seems more womanly. But being a size 14, teetering on the edge of being a 16 is not good. I need to exercise, but right now all my willpower is focused on the change in diet. There are cakes in the office, it’s someone’s birthday. I will not budge from my seat. I will just be hungry. Maybe I’ll get used to the hunger. People all over the world are coping with much worse.

A Summary of the Week

2007-07-13T02:59:00.001-07:00

This week has been a mess of emotions. The seminar was on Tuesday, and I woke up that morning with such panic that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I considered my options and realized I just had to suck it up and go. I had to go to work first for a few hours, then drive with a co-worker to Hanger Lane (to cheekily use our London office car park), and then from there catch the central line to Holborn. I locked myself in the toilet and cried for 10 minutes while at work, not knowing exactly why a stupid little seminar in London should provoke such terror. But I’m still getting used to Sertraline. Fucking stuff isn’t working yet.

In the end, the seminar wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t that terrible either. It was quite informal. The tube journey was long, but easy. I managed to find things to talk about with my co-worker, but I wasn’t that chatty. All in all a lot of panic over not very much. I knew it would be that way, but there is a large, irrational part of me controlled by something dark.

The rest of the week is a blur of feeling sullen, pissy, and restless. Also battling with feeling both lethargic and panicky at the same time.

My parents have been on holiday all week, and so I’ve had the house to myself, which is also a reason for the panic. All alone in a house with nothing but my mind. I’ve been staying up late, just because I could. Because the house was mine. (I’m 24 and living with my parents – can’t afford to do anything else, except become a hobo). Last night I watched a bit of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’. Why O why do I watch these horror films when I hate them. I’m sick. It was a stupid film, but it got me panicky, and then I realized I hadn’t texted my boyfriend back. We always text each other goodnight. Since we live about 30 miles apart we text quite a bit. He was frantic and had tried to call me four times, but I hadn’t heard the phone. He was frantic because he knows I’m in a delicate position at the moment. I imagine he must have thought I had killed myself or something. Anyway, it shook me up. I had completely forgotten about him. Completely. And it worries me how much I forget things, how my boyfriend of a year just vanished from my mind.

It’s true, I don’t love my boyfriend as I should. I can’t bring myself to say that I don’t love him, but I can’t wholeheartedly say that I do either, and I don’t know if it’s the depression holding me back. But it’s a relationship I can’t let go of. He understands and accepts me, despite me being a complete weirdo and he loves me despite me being overweight and moody. God knows why he loves me. But I trust that he does. I feel so guilty that while he loves me, and wants me to move in with him, I’m holding back and cannot love him fully. He makes me feel safe though, which is a terribly important thing, especially in the state I am in now. Maybe I will move in with him in Oxford one day. But I can’t afford to think that far ahead.

Heh, this blog wasn’t supposed to be a memoir of depression. I thought I could make it quirky and fun. But given free reign to talk about what I want, I go back time and time again to depression, because it’s all I really have. Day by day it’s washing me further out to sea.

2007-07-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was wandering through Oxford. Someone stopped me. It was a yoga monk. He told me I looked like a deep thinker, and open minded. Would I give him money for a little book about yoga, any amount I could afford. I declined, because he was probably going to use my money to fund his yogic habits. But he was very good looking, and for some reason I’m always attracted to these spiritual/religious types. I don’t know why. It just happens. They lure me in with their peaceful countenance. Perhaps I want them to teach me how to be peaceful too. But anyway. The monk. I daydreamed about the encounter on and off for the rest of the day. He said I was a deep thinker. Swoon. I do know it was a line he uses to get people to buy his little yoga books. But still, nothing wrong with a little fantasy.

Then, a few days ago, I was wandering through Maidenhead, a little town many many miles from Oxford, and who should I see but the monk, wandering around with a little rucksack, looking calm, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the chavs and the Saturday shoppers, a sea of heathens and consumers. I stared. He didn’t see me. Then I did something that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but now makes me cringe. I looked for him, and found him sitting in a quiet little place, looking contemplative. I SPOKE TO HIM. I told him I’d seen him before. He looked blanked. If monks feel fear then I’m pretty sure I saw fear in his eyes. He was nice enough I suppose, considering he had some crazy girl he didn’t recognize actually coming up to him and babbling like a drug addled loser. He was wearing a little cap, and twice he took it off to rub his bald head. I read somewhere that bald men do that for comfort. So I was evidently terrifying this poor monk, evidently shaking his years of yogic calm. I said a few things, then left. He looked confused. But you see, if I hadn’t said anything I would have regretted it. I thought about him for ages. Why? What did I think was going to happen? He lives in India for chrissakes. And he’s probably celibate, and he thinks I’m crazy. I entertained the possibility that he was a faker, a regular guy trying to cheat people into giving him money, but I do believe he was telling the truth. He just looked very peaceful.

If I were less cynical, I may think seeing a monk in 2 towns 30 miles apart, on 2 separate occasions, may be somewhat of a spiritual calling, or some kind of message. But no. If I see him again, then maybe I’ll reconsider. But for now I shall continue to be a heathen.

I love you.....

2007-07-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Brandon Flowers, Ben Foster, and Derren Brown. I love your deep, penetrating eyes, your look of quiet intelligence, your facial hair. Brandon, don't ever shave the moustache off. My affections can overlook the mormon tendancies, the wife, but please, don't touch the moustache. Kurt, you were a tortured soul and you were in a band. For that, scores of stupid girls like me swoon over you, even now. Derren, I'd like to outwit your mind trickery. You would be a challenge, but in my fantasies I attract you with my complex and confusing personality. Ben, I didn't notice you until you were in Six Feet Under. But the character you played did things to me.

Depression be damned, you will not steal my libido.

Side Effects

2007-07-05T03:10:00.000-07:00

My body is doing all sorts of weird things and acting in a very unpredictable manor. But I must endure. Sertraline is like a plumber, re-routing dodgy connections and controlling the flow of sertraline. But instead of fixing leaks, it’s causing them, so I have lots of little serotonin puddles.
I’ve been feeling sick. Strange little stomach complaints that are a common side effect with the drug. Oddly enough, I’m also very withdrawn, so other people seem very far away and for some bizarre reason I find it preferable not to look anyone in the eye. I just don’t want to. I’m tired, taking lots of little cat naps when time allows. I can’t think of anything to say to people, thought processes are slowed, as if underwater. To top it all off I have the occasional feeling of dizziness and disorientation.

I know I’m moaning/self obsessed/boring as hell. But I’m honestly not after sympathy. I expected all of the above. I’ve been doing this long enough to know what’s what, and that doctors are often uninformed about antidepressants, and that for me, the drugs kick in at around the one and a half week mark. I know that I am acting and feeling things that are not usual for me.

I long for the day when I can get enthusiastic about my painting again, about writing poetry again. If I could just get the motivation going, then I’d be ok. I have a talent, not the greatest talent, but still, talent of sorts, but right now I haven’t the will to drive it. I’m hoping if/when the meds kick in I’ll be able to progress from this horrible state I’m in right now.

Shiny and happy

2007-07-03T05:40:00.000-07:00

Reasons why I’m feeling ok today:

- The sun is out
- I feel I have some degree of control over things at work.
- I have some toffee popcorn in my bag.
- I’m wearing a new bracelet, which I love. It wasn’t expensive. It’s a blue leatheresque strap with little silver studs on it. Sounds weird, but trust me, it’s nice.
- I have tomorrow off of work.
- Found out that at this stupid seminar I have to go to, there is no role playing involved.

Six points there. That’s pretty good, for me. Yesterday I was very pissy and sullen. Today I’m sweetness and light. Tomorrow, who knows.

Lots of News

2007-07-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

News:

-3 failed terrorist attacks
-More flooding in the north, and lots of other places too
-The Diana Concert

News about me:

-A new drug regime. 50mg of sertraline daily, to be taken with or without food.
-Discovery of possible role play situation at the ‘Building Partnerships’ meeting.
-Almost successful recovery from miscellaneous stomach bug

Yes, Sertraline. Also know as Lustral. I hope they don’t make me put on weight. I hope they make me better.

There is an older post titled ‘Corporate Bollocks’ that describes in full the horror I have to endure on 10th July. And now I learn it may involve role play, after my boss told me there wouldn’t be any of that nonsense. Trust no one.

I won’t go into details with the stomach bug thing. All I will say is that in order to rid myself of it I had to drink Pepto Bismol, which is a disconcerting pink colour, and smells an awful lot like antiseptic. Tastes BAD. If you don’t heave after drinking it, it does work. I am on the road to recovery.

Going back to the role play thing. We’re not talking bedroom antics here, we’re talking 12 strangers in a small room. We’re talking embarrassment, we’re talking offices and suits and having to vocalize shite while, I might add, I’m trying to adjust to new medication, which is not easy, as any fellow junkies will know. Antidepressants take a while to work. A few weeks. If they work at all. I sat in a meeting today and I literally couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I was mute. I was a husk. To role playing, I say fuck off.

None of that matters really, when you think of what else is going on in the world. But knowing that doesn’t really help does it?

The floods

2007-06-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

So, the flooding in the north. Where I am, in the south east, it’s not been too bad. The occasional heavy downpour, a few big puddles, nothing to halt my daily routine. I like the fact that in the pictures I’ve seen on the BBC website, there are people looking happy and people pulling together. Of course I realize that people have lost their cars and homes, and I realize that’s no cause for joy, but I just like the way people are making the best of it. Gives me the warm and fuzzies.

Jealousy

2007-06-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

There are women out there, my age, who are more successful than me, more clever, more articulate, more lean and healthy and pretty. I, in comparison, am average, and it pisses me off so much I could cry. Perhaps it’s not the fact that I am average but the knowledge that I am average. The high achievers taunt me. Of course, I know if I were to get off my fat ass and do something I could be in a better position than I am now. Of course I know that if I ate less and exercised more I’d be thinner. I know what I have to do, but I don’t do it. I don’t know why. Instead I seethe with resentment over my boyfriend’s ex, for example. She is accomplished, published, and looks very womanly. I often think I look about 16.

It’s all self pitying nonsense. But it’s my blog, so there. And no one ever reads it anyway.

I read the blogs of others, and one lady in particular describes her day to day life with such insight, with such intelligence. Her life is so interesting. She articulates the thoughts and feeling that I have experienced, but do not have the language or ability to transfer to paper, or in this case, blog.

When the meds still worked, and I was less depressed, I didn’t care if I failed or succeeded, and I stopped comparing myself to others. Now that my brain is hungry for more serotonin, I am floored by the accomplished ladies and their eventful lives.

Blah

2007-06-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting at my desk, wondering if my colleagues have noticed the fact that I have been doing my work in a trance, and that when spoken to I smile and nod like a regular person, but I’m actually not connected to the body that sits in the uncomfortable office swivel chairs, I’m actually locked inside my head, in a kind of dreamy unreal la la land. It could be Monday blues, or my meds wearing off, or it could be that I have finally, and truly, lost my shit.

I spent a fairly unremarkable weekend under rainy skies. On Saturday there was thunder and lightning. The cat hid under my bed. The rain came down so hard all the drains burst. I had an insatiable desire for chocolate, and chowed down on an unhealthy assortment of very bad things. I had planned on NOT watching the 28 Days Later film that was on TV on Sunday night, because it scares me, and I don’t like it. But what did I do? I watched the first half an hour, and now I have crazy, scary people with red eyes chasing me around in my thoughts, and I keep thinking about whether it would have been better to be a survivor, or just to have died really early on, because if you were one of the survivors you have to live with the fact that everyone you ever knew is dead, and you have to hide from the crazy scary people with red eyes. If you just died early on it’d be over and done with, and the crazy scary people with red eyes can’t get you. If you’ve never seen the film none of that will make any sense. Even if you have seen the film I suspect you’re probably quite lost.

Also on Sunday I wandered around Oxford with the boyfriend. We ate icecream at G&Ds. I went for the Dime Bar Crunch. In my humble opinion it is the best flavour they do at G&Ds.

I’m living life in the fast lane.

Threesome....ha...in my dreams.....

2007-06-22T03:53:00.001-07:00

I had a strange dream last night. It involved walking around London at night, but there was all this scaffolding everywhere, and it was so extensive that it blotted out the sky. I was wandering in and out of shops, but then I realized I needed to catch a train. Once in the station I got on one of those old fashioned steam trains. When I got inside it was like a hotel, there were carriages with beds in them. I managed to find a little cabin that even had a bathroom. Then all of a sudden I was sharing my cabin with two men, and I was having sex with both of them. What a slut I am.

It was so vivid. I woke up slightly confused, and rather impressed that my subconscious had managed to conjour up such an intricate and racy dream. Why would I dream about a threesome? Why the scaffolding?

The sense of confusion upon waking has stayed with me, and it’s almost lunchtime. I’m not sure it will go away. I’m fit for nothing today. I’m sure I must have early onset dementia.

Corporate Bollocks

2007-06-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

Oh Lord. Just when I think my job can’t get any worse, I have just been informed that I have to attend 4 seminars. Module one is about ‘Building Partnerships.’ The agenda is as follows:

Defining a partnership and it’s inherent characteristics
Overview of the skills required to produce partnership relationships
Barriers to partnership
The role of mind set and self talk in establishing parity in relationships
Exploring problem solving skills
Case studies of how to add value to a colleagues role
Case studies of communicating ideas and solutions to problems
The concept of ‘emotional bank accounts’ in partnerships
Identifying and action planning key relationships
Coaching notes and plan

Emotional bank account?? WTF??

I am livid. It’s compulsory, so nothing short of death can get me out of this one. My manager told us all there were no role plays. But if there is I’m walking out. There will be ‘discussion’ and an informal atmosphere. But even so, it’s my worse nightmare. It’s in the middle of London for a start. 1-5.30pm. I’m going with a colleague I know and am friendly with, but I find that out of the office environment these work relationships are somehow odd and difficult, and suddenly conversation is strained. And I feel so bad that she has to come with me, because I will be having a nervous breakdown, I will be an incoherent mess, I will be out of my mind on *Nurofen Plus.

You may wonder what the big deal is. You probably do these sorts of things all the time. But I don’t. I remain sane and in control only when I am in familiar situations and have some idea of what to expect. It’s one of my many ‘issues’. Put me somewhere I don’t want to be, with people I don’t know, in the middle of a place I don’t know, doing a course on something that may or may not require me to voice opinions about something I couldn’t give a shit about. Add to that the fact that I don’t have a choice about anything. I HAVE to go. It’s all corporate bollocks. Many buzz words with no substance. Read the agenda again. Give me a reason why I need to be there. It’s not necessary for my job. I don’t have any contact with our clients, I don’t need to kiss anyone’s ass. I do my stupid little officey stuff and go home. I get on with the people in the office well enough.

The whole depression thing rendered me defenseless, a child. I took my meds and got a bit better, and I developed a few coping mechanisms. One being that I surround myself with the familiar, a ‘safe’ environment. If I know where I am/what is expected of me then I can deal. I fear what I do not know, and torture myself with thoughts of what may/may not happen. I’ve spent years cocooning myself, and if something bad comes up, I can usually find a way around it, or I have someone to guide me through.

It’s not just one seminar either, there are 4 of the fuckers. One each month. So it’ll be hanging over my head until November.

*Nurofen Plus make me feel a little calmer, it gives me a kind of serene feeling. It contains codeine. I realize this is not a healthy way to deal with stress, but in times of desperation it’s what I turn to, and also days when I just want to zone out and be numb.

Zoo!

2007-06-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

At the weekend I went to the zoo, and saw these:

and I ate a cookie that looked like this:

and yes, I am 24 years old.

The animal in the first picture was very tame, and let me scratch his ear. He stood right where the people were, and seemed to enjoy the attention. I fell in love with him. If he'd been a bit smaller I could have put him into my handbag. I think I know what he is, but I can't spell it. I don't really care. I love him.

The fitness goddess, Rosemary Connelly

2007-06-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of Rosemary Connelly? She does the fitness videos and diet books. You may remember her famous ‘Hip and Thigh’ diet. Her hair probably looked quite good in the eighties, but she’s not changed it since then, so now, in 2007, she looks weird. Questionable appearance aside, she does good aerobic workout videos. Very simple and straightforward, so even someone as uncoordinated as me can follow. I have a small collection of her cheesy workout DVDs, and I set aside half an hour each day to sweat like a pig to her cheerful, unwavering enthusiasm for fitness. God bless her. She’s going to give me a toned stomach. I can’t go to the gym you see, like a normal person. When I sweat I go red, and look disgusting, and I’m shockingly unfit, and the thought of another person seeing me in that state is terrifying. So Rosemary Connelly it is. I’ve put on a pound (muscle hopefully) and I have begun to notice stomach shrinkage. Nothing too dramatic though, which is annoying.

Puking

2007-06-19T03:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been sick at work, I mean physically sick? I have. Luckily in the privacy of a toilet cubicle. I had eaten a kit kat a little too early in the morning, and had a thumping headache, and as I sat at my desk, amongst my healthy co-workers, I had to urge to puke. So I did. And now I feel a lot better. Sometimes I get really bad headaches, and they make me feel nauseous, and I inevitably puke, and then I feel better for a while. Why is that? Why does puking ease a bad headache? Maybe it’s just me. My head does work in very mysterious ways.

Urgh

2007-06-18T02:03:00.000-07:00

There is the distinct possibility that my medication is wearing off.

I've been crying at very odd times, for no apparent reason. I've been at a loss for things to say when with friends, and at work. I've been anxious for no apparent reason. I've been withdrawing. Sometimes when I'm at work I retreat into my head so much that I am barely aware of the people around me.

I can still smile though, and get out of bed in the mornings, so I haven't fallen too far. I will have to have a word with my GP, maybe up the dose. It's a game I've been playing for many years now. Up the dose, then move to something new, have several relatively sane months, then up the dose, and move to something new when I recognise the telltale signs of flagging seratonin.

SSRIs are rather good. They seem to do the trick. I'm on citalapram at the moment. There are a few side effects like increased sweating, and I've gone up a few dress sizes. I used to be a UK size 10. Long gone are those days! You might think those are quite disturbing side effects. But it's nothing compared to the depression.

Anyway, ho hum. I'm ok really. I can still function, and I had an ok weekend. I'm going to post some pictures on here later.

My Dad's Uncle

2007-06-15T04:05:00.000-07:00

I was driving back from my boyfriend’s flat. My window was open, a nice breeze was drifting into my car. It had been raining for most of the evening, and there was a damp, fresh kind of smell in the air. It was dark, around 11pm, and mine was the only car twisting along the country roads. There was something very pleasing about it all. Rain was evaporating from the roads, which looked pretty eerie. It looked like the road was steaming. Usually these long drives home from Oxford are tedious and boring, and I can’t wait to be home. But that night I was struck with a very strange feeling of peace, and for some bizarre, reason, I began to cry. Ok, so that’s quite pathetic. But wait, it gets worse. I began thinking about the recently deceased uncle of my dad, and how he would never again experience a night like this, and the crying got worse.

My dad’s uncle was 79, and grumpy. In fact, I’d never had a proper conversation with him. He was always the one at family get togethers snoozing in the corner, or complaining about something, or smoking with his gnarled arthritic hands. I knew he was a good man with a strong moral backbone, but with age and the pain of an aging body he had developed a rather hard, tough exterior.

But then he died, collapsing at the bottom of his staircase, with one arm in his winter jacket, about to delivery Christmas cards. It was only then I became oddly fascinated with him. We have all his photos at my house. We have to keep them safe, and not let the life of my dad’s uncle disappear into obscurity. There are photos of my dad when he was a baby, photos dating back to the 1930s, photos documenting a life full of travel – Mediterranean cruises, Egyptian tombs, African Safaris – there’s even a picture of me when I was about 6, at a wedding that I don’t even remember going to. It’s all very fascinating, being able to look into this person’s life, and discovering all these things I never knew.

My dad’s uncle lead a very full life.

Excuse the very random topic. My memory is terrible, and if I don’t document all these little things I will forget them.

The First

2007-06-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

So.....

Born out of an idle afternoon at work, this could be a horrible mistake, or the start of something very interesting. Or an unhealthy obsession. I'll have to wait and see.

This will be the sad tale of me. Enjoy.