crazy talk

My happy pills seem to be kicking in (that, and the fact I have no serious work today). I still have a headache (it’s been about 48 hours now) but it’s fading, and I’ve spent the last two hours doing “real writing” (as opposed to “research” or “thinking” or reading). I’m doing a final read-through of “The Monster Apprentice” (first book in my children’s trilogy) before sending it to the publisher who’s currently deciding about “Stormhunter”. I like to think that sending them a second book will remind them I’m still waiting for the first. So it feels like I’m actually doing something.

And I decided to ask my husband to do my weekend chore today That’s ALWAYS fun. He’s already done two loads of washing, and now he’s vacuuming. There’s nothing hotter.

I’m beginning to think having a breakdown is an annual event for me. As the weeks and days and hours pass, I can feel myself getting crazier. I’m less coordinated, more frightened, more angry, less rational – and I don’t know how long I’ll keep getting worse. More importantly, I don’t know where my personal rock bottom is. Or who I’ll take with me. I do know that I snap fast and violently when I snap.

I’ve just started taking my happy pills again, and I’m changing my contraceptive pill. Who knows? Maybe something will make things better.

My bedroom window, by a quirk of architecture, faces our nearest neighbour’s driveway. A young family lives there, and I see the mum a lot during the day, though I’ve never actually spoken to any of them. The other day I was lying down with the curtains and the window open. I clearly heard one of the children telling a visitor, “That lady lies down a lot.”

It’s true. I sleep a lot during the day (a classic mentally ill thing to do, but in my case I am fortunate to also sleep at night), and when I get overwhelmed – too overwhelmed to read, or listen to music, or watch TV – I lie in bed and look at the sky. Sometimes for hours.

The up side of my current mental breakdown is that not only can I see it coming (and prepare for it to a certain extent), but I know exactly what is causing it: waiting for a publisher to reply to a book (I already know they really like it – but that’s never yet been enough).

I watched “The Shawshank Redemption” last night. I disagree with the main character (and theme). In my opinion, hope is bad. It’s deadly poison to the powerless, and it’s killing me now.

It’s not the publisher’s fault - nor is it mine. I just hope I get a reply soon.

Yesterday I had an epiphany.

Everyone has certain friends they don’t like – people you quietly wish would leave your friendship group, but you know they never will.

Pause for a related tale:

When I was fifteen or sixteen, I had a crush on a boy. (Mostly because he’d fallen for me, and was incredibly good-looking AND incredibly romantic, AND one of my best friends). Since I was already deeply in love with someone else, I made the decision not to go out with him – but I was very tempted. I’ll call the TDH (tall dark and handsome) crush Fred.

Some months passed, and by chance I discovered that Fred was making up stories about mutual friends of ours. I was lucky enough to stumble across information that made his dishonesty absolutely clear.

I’ve never been a fan of people who make up lies (my biological father, apparently, used to do exactly the same thing – making up unneccessary lies that were sometimes less attractive than the truth). I quickly realised that he was probably making up stories about me, too – some of them based on true secrets I’d told him.

Trust is vital in friendship, but I realised I still enjoyed his company. All I had to do to remain friends was never tell him any secrets, and to accept that a lot of what he said was completely made up. It was like a friendship with one piece taken out – and it worked surprisingy well.

And back to the present:

Since I became a basket case, friendships have been a lot harder to maintain. There are two I’ve deliberately chosen to draw back from – one because her own anxiety brings me down the instant I so much as think of her, and one because I know one day she’ll get annoyed and write about my many flaws (specifically and by my real name) on facebook.

Three other friends have hurt me badly in various ways – but they’re very close friends, and deeply embedded in friendship groups I can’t leave. So for about a year now I’ve been struggling to know what to do – how to reconcile their cruelty with our unbreakable friendships.

Their cruelty didn’t bother me so much – my weakness does sometimes bring out a bad side in others - but I was very ashamed of my own inability to just let it go.

Finally I realised that I wasn’t angry with them – I’d forgiven them long ago – I was simply afraid, knowing I couldn’t trust them.

So all I have is another few friendships with a piece missing. I can handle that!

I’ll probably always be afraid of them, but so what? Sometimes getting in or out of my car is so conceptually difficult I have a panic attack.

I’m not a bad person for still having negative feelings about bad people. And now I can live with my conscience, I can endure them, too.

PG for mention of adult content.

I (more or less) achieved something today I’ve been trying to do for around thirteen years. It wasn’t major book publication. It was donating blood.

I always seem to have a cold or some other minor illness, or a recent tattoo, or a bad medication. Plus it’s simply an unfamiliar task (yesterday, I mopped two and a half rooms for the first time. It took all day, and I only managed it by using no soap or bucket – just cold water from the tap. Even in my own house, an unfamiliar task spins my world into disarray. Either that, or cleaning is just a health risk).

My husband and I went to donate blood some months ago, and there was some reason I couldn’t do it (a cold, I think). He did, and I at least got to know what the waiting room etc looks like (making the place slightly more familiar).

It really creeped me out even then. I think it’s that doctors (if they’re any good) do a convincing job of seeming to care. Most of the time I feel I’m able to hide my craziness behind the simplest of facades – but not with doctors. Weird but true. Also there’s SO much occupational health and safety stuff that I feel certain something horrible is about to happen (OH&S always has this effect on me – it was arguably the number one reason I decided to quit regular classroom teaching).

I tried to set up an appointment for last Monday (public holiday), so my partner and I could go together. Not surprisingly, it was closed. But I made an appointment for just me, today. Even at the time I realised it was dumb.

I’m a little anaemic, plus anxiety makes me sluggish and unco – as if I’m drunk, sometimes. And there was no knowing if I’d have a weird first-donation reaction like fainting or something. (I’ve had dozens of shots, but have become less and less able to deal with the slightest bit of pain or blood. I’m turning into a friggin’ GIRL!)

Aaaannyway. . .

The preceding night and morning I ate a LOT and drank (water) even more – as per the web site instructions.

I got hopelessly lost on the way (already having a panic attack – crying, and unable to remember even the simplest directions for more than half a second), but luckily stumbled across the right street, and even parked in the right place. That was the first hurdle. The second was getting a parking permit from reception, putting it in my car, and going back in.

This is the kind of thing I find really difficult – not sure why. On the way out I dropped the ticket at the door, struggling to not cry, to carry my bag, and to push the door open. As I picked it up, I stumbled into the door and a nurse (or someone – I averted my face) asked if I was all right. I wasn’t able to answer.

Put permit in car. Closed and locked car. Went back in. Picked up folder with form in it. Filled out form (no I have never had man to man sex). Another hurdle down.

Waited, reading a book I’d prepared earlier and eating lollies I’d also prepped.

Had my “interview” where they follow up on the form (“Are you SURE you’ve never had man to man sex? And how recently have you not had man to man sex?” – okay, I admit they didn’t follow up on that bit) and also prick a finger very slightly to test your iron levels (which for me they did twice because the first reading was incorrect). Didn’t cry. Mentioned anxiety without crying. All good. Managed to take off my jacket without braining myself or the nurse, or flailing enough to damage expensive medical equipment (clothes freak me out, too. Especially heavy outer clothing).

The nurse could tell I’d drunk a lot because my blood was flowing beautifully. Yay for gushing torrents of blood.

She gave me a first-timer sticker for my shirt, so people “know to keep an eye on you”.

Went into the big room with the comfy chairs and the ominous arm-rests. It reeked of efficiency, competence, and sanitation. I actually liked the fact that the chairs look like dentist’s chairs – dentists are usually borderline psychotic (in my opinion) and don’t really care if you’re in pain. I like that.

Sat down fine, and was more or less okay as they put a strap on my upper arm and poked at my veins while I squeezed a foam ball.

Blood is life-force. Every writer knows that. I’d tried not to think of the symbology of what I was doing – having my life-force sucked away in the goriest possible way not involving CGI monsters. Naturally, I failed.

Oh, and of course I had to try to keep still. (I’ve heard that’s the toughest aspect of Chinese water torture.)

The instant the needle went in my arm, I cried – quickly attracting a small crowd. I was very lucky – I was still able to speak (“it’s just anxiety, no it doesn’t hurt, nothing’s physically wrong”) and I was mercifully snot-free (since there was no way I could blow my nose).

Someone fetched me a drink of water (with a straw) which actually was extremely helpful – symbolically, the intake of water balanced the outtake of blood, so I felt that I wasn’t losing anything.

Unfortunately, it turns out I was wrong about my anxiety being only crippling and humiliating to me. It turns out it slows blood flow, too. The staff got some blood, but it was so sluggish they thought their machine was either broken or about to be broken, and they gave up.

So. . . fail. But success too, because they have enough of my life-force to tell me my blood group “for next time” – which is something I’ve always wanted to know.

I cried plenty more in the recovery room (weeping into my free strawberry milkshake and chewing morosely on my jellybeans of shame), and SMSed my husband to please leave work and take me home – which he did.

For obvous reasons, I’m never going back.