Insomniac Ramblings

Today was fucking atrocious.

The last two days I should have called in sick to work, but I knew Awesome Boss was training people and didn't have the staff to cover me, so I stuck it out.

Shouldn't have gone.

I don't know what I said, I'm in "Fuck-it-all-I-don't-care-anymore" mode and gave Tweedle Evil some more ammo to use behind my back, but I'm too tired to give a shit.

So tired I can't get warm, my arms and legs feel like they weigh 70kg each, keep dropping things, flailing everywhere.

Fucking patronising stuck-up BITCH 2IC of the new store whom we are training doesn't believe me when I say I have tried pretty much everything in order to sleep.

Off the top of my head:
Peppermint tea, chamomile tea, valerian tea, sex marathons, warm milk, masturbation, relaxing music, meditation, counting sheep, boring movies, doubling numbers in my head, relaxation exercises, rereading my BSNS101 textbook, alcohol, pot, stuffing myself until I'm comatose, exercising until I collapse, sleeping medications.


Fuck off to the new store and leave us the hell alone.

Miles gave me a ride home from work. I think I demanded repeatedly to know what the hell I am supposed to do at night during the Folk Festival since I will not be able to sleep and there is no Internet access/phone coverage.

Sit by the fire and knit???

They'd better have a lot of firewood.

And painkillers. Stupid fucking headache.

I don't think he realised how bad it's getting, since he never sleeps over any more (because I don't sleep and he still does, he's busyIneedmyspaceblahblahblah) and claims to not notice my 12kg weight gain.

He wouldn't notice because he hasn't seen me naked more than once in the last year and I think we've had sex once since I went on the Mirtazapine well over a year ago. When I went over an untoned 62kg the feeling of my flab squishing under his hands has been the most massive turn off I have found since first seeing Fat Bastard.

Whom I now closely resemble.

Get a fucking BRA for those moobs, man! Geeze.

I can't stop the daily weighing. Even though it does nothing but upset me and make me binge. However I've noticed a downward trend in the fluctuations. Slow, but it's there.

Hovering in the 69kg bracket, no longer in the lower part of 70kg. When my period water retention goes I'll know better.

Massage tomorrow. She thought I was out of control? I'll show her some fucking control.


1kg down. 11 to go to get to where I was. Then re-evaluate.


Game fucking on, bitch.

I'll hone my ass-kicking muscles while I'm at it and do some yoga to see if I can actually kick high enough to get her in the face.

Dammit I wish sleep deprivation didn't have such an adverse effect on the metabolism.

Just had a massive fucking rage because the yarn and batt I bought on Etsy looks like they've been shipped to a place I haven't lived at for three years because Paypal was a dick and reset my shipping preferences.

Freaked out, cried, deleted all shipping addresses bar the correct one, messaged the shop regarding shipping and tomorrow I'm stopping at the post shop after Squad to find out how much it would cost to set up mail rerouting to catch it BEFORE I have to go crawling on my knees to the new tenants and plead for my yarn.

It's just after 3am, I'm running out of things to say and patience with my inability to spell. Time to fill my hot water bottle and go hid under the blankets until dawn.

~Peri

Unlisted Vlog: I'm Just Talking Out My Ass

Checking in and talking out my ass, swearing a lot and raging about a customer.

I met ED.

I shit you not, the living male personification of Eddie walked into my store and took over half an hour to make a decision on his lunch.

Sickest thing is he looks about as sick as I do; but the vocalised thoughts and actions were pure illness.

I never really make a point about anything. Just half an hour of talking out my ass.





~Peri

P.S. I asked Star how to make the hat I'm wearing. She said "Oh, it's easy" and launched into something horribly complicated about cables that sounded like the bastard crackwhore offspring of Algebra and Knitting. Typical!

P.P.S. Not looking forward to Whitestone (Folk Festival) AT ALL, despite Miles talking about taking me to yarn stores in Oamaru. Long winy post coming soon -.-;

For Conduct Unbecoming a Cat

Who remembers the Mouse Incident of last year?

Well, the little baggage did it again.

Except THIS TIME it was a rat.

Not too big and nasty, so it must have been born during the summer. But the cunning little fucker already knows how to work catflaps and could jump like a polevaulter on steroids.

Dralion brought it inside about 7pm. I spent 7 until about 10 listening to her chase it up and down the hallway, until after a period of silence I heard the catflap go.

"Sweet!" I thought. "She's finally killed it! Now I can get to the loo without worrying about the rat getting into the lounge!"

WRONG.

WRONG, PERI.

YOU ARE SO VERY, VERY WRONG.

The little bitch had gotten bored of waiting for it to move during a staredown and gone outside to find more.

I proceeded to lose a lot of slingshot ammo and snap my wooden spoon in an attempt to bludgeon the thing to death (NB: Rats are FAST) and eventually went against my usual instincts in relation to environment-destroying introduced pest species and chased it outside.

Right past Dralion, who was chilling by the recycling bin.



Dralion:

Peri:

Rat:

Dralion Fleabag McHungus, you are officially on notice for Conduct Unbecoming a Cat. Another refusal to kill a rodent you catch and I will dress you up as Nyan Cat and publish your shame to the Internet. If you continue to commit such heinous crimes, I will put you in said costume and throw you to the children.

You have been warned.

~Peri

Longwinded Boring Ramble

This post is going in fits and starts. Words and the urge to use them come and go like fireworks against a backdrop of apathy.

Get all these wonderful words, and then they disappear in a cloud of "What's the bloody point?"

Holding on, but barely.

"Skin of my teeth", as t'were.

Four hour crying freakout about leaving the house to go to the Knitting Squad, despite wanting to go because the Milton Craft Group ladies were visiting us.

Should have just kept my big mouth shut. I don't know how to hold a conversation any more, kept getting those withering looks everyone gives the socially incompetent. Double mistake of sitting near a terribly self-important Super Normal Woman.

I know I'm a fuckup and a failure, Queen. Pointing it out is just being redundant.

Managed to go to the gym, coz at least my new program brings on the burn. Monosyllabic answers to the trainers, trying to avoid looking in the mirrors, nearly vomiting whenever someone touched me to make sure I was disengaging my shoulders/tucking correctly/using the right muscle groups. Turning down trap squashes and things that could keep me more mobile because they involve being touched.

And it's warm in there.

It snowed on the hills the other morning and the temperature hasn't risen much despite the sun. Condensation froze on the inside of my kitchen window last night. My hands are almost completely bloodless despite my gloves and I really wouldn't care except that I don't want chilblains again.

I've discovered that when my hands are white+blue anything I try to moisturise them just curdles and doesn't soak in.

Been distracting with M:TG, but it only works while I'm building decks. Holding mana curve and abilities and deck purpose and spell/creature/mana ratios in my head means I can't think of anything else.

So far my Hybrid-Lifegain Deck has been sacrificed to make an Angel/Soldier deck and a Pure Lifegain deck. In a fit of impulse spending I accidentally a Sigarda for my Green/White minion generating deck, which is in need of some serious tweaking.

She should quite nicely break Miles' annoying, boring, game-breaking deck that first stops you from playing anything, then makes you sacrifice EVERYTHING and only has fucking 1/1 Myrs to attack you with.

No elf deck just yet, we'll see what the next block brings. I have my Slivers for overrunning my opponent with a pack of evil mutants.

Miles is doing the 48-Hour Film Festival (Rofl, his team pulled "Romantic Comedy") this weekend and had a massive presentation for the Whitestone Folk Festival tonight, so there has been no deck testing, only deck building.

When a deck is finally put together I have time to think, which is a bad thing.

It's just so loud in here.

Fuckup, failure, blubberlump, weakling, sook, attention-seeker, useless, fatso, crybaby, whiner.

Got a letter from the Southern DHB, saying that while I have been referred to them to see a Clinical Psychologist, they're getting more referrals than they can handle so I've been placed on a waiting list.

The waiting list for an "emergency/urgent referral".

Well, whoop-tee-fuckin-doo.

Wondering if it will even help, if I get it. If I live long enough to get it. If I'm not freaking out and acting plausibly sane when I get it. Contemplating a courtesy suicide so that the people on the list below me will get help that wee bit faster.

It's kinda ironic that before I talked myself into going to the mailbox I was looking at the card I was given at EPS, contemplating ringing them and admitting to not being able to live with myself any more and having memorised the equation for the number of OTC-Strength paracetamol required per kg of bodyweight for death by overdose so I can ensure death on any given day. That I work in a supermarket and have enough in my savings account to purchase the paracetamol and a few bottles of ice wine to wash it down.

Told Miles I don't want to move in with him and his housemate because there would be constant people and him wanting to touch me all the fucking time and I can't stand being touched and being myself so much that I shower as little as possible.

Mr.T apologised for unloading all his bad-week stress on me for being 8mins late (As usual, coz I fail at life) which was not really appreciated as by the point he got around to apologising I had determined that I fuck up everything just by being around and that I'm a fuckup worthless failure who should just go slit her wrists in the toilets so everyone would be better off. (Not worth doing, the blood would give me away before I accomplished anything)

I keep comparing myself to one of the guys at work who died a few months ago.

(Prepare for awkward Politically Correct Pussyfooting. EDIT: Fuck this euphemism bullshit. Changing the name of a thing for fear of offending the pearl-clutching bleeding-hearters does a disservice to this guy)

To me, he was the mentally disabled guy who worked in produce who was always talking to everyone in the staffroom on breaks,  chewed with his mouth open and always seemed to actually give a shit when he asked how you were.

We weren't great mates because I was always annoyed with him trying to force me to be social when I wanted to hide in my book and escape Noms'R'Us for a few precious minutes.

It turns out that to society he was an amazing bloke and a massive PR guy&role model who represeented a  local organisation whose mission is to let people with disabilities to get "normal" jobs and lead relatively normal lives. He was a marathon runner who still competed in the walks when his body wouldn't let him run any more. If you wanted to know ANYTHING at all about any fruit or vegetable we stocked, you asked him. This guy had an encyclopaedic knowledge of bananas.

Personally I think that it is awesome that my company employs people with handicaps and learning disabilities. If you can do something, why the fuck should you let someone tell you that you shouldn't because "it's taking jobs away from able-bodied people"??

How many "able-bodied" people do you see who are content to spend 20+ years pushing trolleys or stocking shelves or doing any of the hundreds of other low-brainpower menial jobs required to keep a modern-style society running? Most are grizzling about boredom, goofing off and checking the Classifieds for new jobs within a fortnight (Like Slowpoke and Miss Psychlaw).

While it does get on my tits that Polly (Who I went to High School with and who was in the "Special Needs" Unit for a mild {Especially compared to my Cousin} mental disability) is allowed to get away with so much crap that she shouldn't, disability or no, I still think that it's wonderful that she was given a job and a chance in the first place.

(She had recently gotten a BF who is 10 years older than us. If he hurts her a few of the Deli people will be getting together to give him a thorough bashing. I'm personally going for some finger-breakage and maybe a leg fracture if I can borrow The Boy's baseball bat. You do NOT fuck with my mates.)

Still, thinking about Produce Guy is making me feel bad.

I mean, if someone with all the visible handicaps he did managed to be so amazing and do so much good, what the hell is wrong with me that I can't do even a fraction of what he did and I have all my limbs and faculties? Why can't I just get over it, suck it up and deal and do the things I actually WANT to do, to do something that will make a difference? I'm not making much of a difference by sitting here just barely holding out against the monster in my head.

The monster is my head.

The monster is me.

I am a monster.

Sucking up resources, consuming everything and producing nothing. Demanding help I'm not even sure would work, that I'm not even sure I deserve. There are people who have been through worse, who have suffered more traumas, have a legitimate reason to freak right the fuck out and wreak bodily mayhem on themselves.

What the fuck do I have?

An abusive childhood I can barely remember, someone who tried to murder me on a school-bus with my classmates egging them on, a drug addicted brother who tried to beat me up and told me he couldn't wait to see the back of me and some faulty brain chemistry.

My childhood hero, the only person besides my grandparents who made me feel safe and happy and that I could do anything and that my interests were worth pursuing was a raging alcoholic whom my paternal grandparents suspected of molesting me.

He treated me like a little brother or sister. I wouldn't have felt as safe as I did in his "10c house with the million dollar view" if he had done anything dodgy. There are huge gaps in my memory but I don't remember any of the bad vibes from him that made me avoid EVER being alone in the same room as a certain uncle who has since been packed off to police-forced psychiatric inpatient for the safety of others.

(Nothing sexual, he finally went completely bonkers and freaked out some gas station workers in the process)

Something that I can't help wondering about is how much easier it is to be an Inspirational Role Model when you have a massive support crew around you every step of the way like Produce Guy did? When you have people encouraging you and supporting you and looking after you every day of your life it gives you a bit of an advantage.

It is an "advantage" Produce Guy and my coworkers like him need if they're ever to live a semblance of an normal, independent life. I know that for one of the Trolley Boys simply having a productive job to do is the best things that could have ever happened to him. He is so incredibly happy to be able to put on his uniform and clock in and contribute that it makes me feel bad for hating some aspects of my job.

Still, Olympic athletes have support crews around them constantly telling them that they can do "it" (Whatever their 'it" happens to be).

Is it easier or harder to be an inspiration and a role model when you have people constantly supporting you through every step of your life and always telling you that you can achieve your dreams?

Is it easier or harder to say "Fuck you all" and achieve your dreams with everyone and yourself telling you that you can't?

I don't bloody know. Just not capable of much purely abstract thought right now.

Trying to be good. Trying to rehydrate myself, I've put on 1.5kg of water weight in 2 days because my body is freaking out and thinks I live in the Sahara and it's finally rained.

It'll go away eventually.

Right?

~Peri

Waves of Strippers, Said Discorded Applejack

Is this the lull between waves? I'm not sure.

Is it even worth continuing to dig my tidefight or should I give up and dive right on in?

More moments of sunshine after three weeks of solid storming, but the surging energy is back, bringing with it new heights of insomnia and irritability.

On the bright side I haven't attacked my thighs since the panic of Tuesday when I re-booked my massage.

What that means is I'm restricting fluids while gorging on sweets, to punish myself by making myself fatter and disgustingly sick-feeling.

Smart, I am not.

Mum is back from her trip to Spain+Great Britain, bringing back some lovely beads for my necklace (And a hideous waste of stirling silver in the shape of a croc charm. WHY?!? WHY WOULD PEOPLE DO THIS???) as well as some other little gifts that show genuine thought for once.

Yeah, my Mum and thoughtfulness don't usually go together for very long.

Of course, she reverted to type as soon as she thought Miles wasn't listening.

Discussing how being presented with a search warrant by police whilst in nothing but a towel while she and Dad were out of town has given me a mild terror of anyone in a Police uniform.

"You just need to get over it. You need to get over a lot of things, Peri."

If you had just kept your big mouth shut you wouldn't have fucked up an otherwise pleasant evening, Mother.

NB: If you ever get me strippers, make sure they are NOT in cop uniforms. Mayhem would ensue.

NOT THIS:

OR THIS:

Got it?

Good.

Mum also wants me to knit half a dozen hats, gratis, for people I've never met or corresponded with.

Remember, we're talking about the same woman who gave her brother-in-law a hat, explicitly telling him that he could keep it. The SAME WOMAN who spent the next few weeks texting him nonstop demanding he return the gift hat.

The same woman who demanded I knit an entire Spawn Outfit in three weeks while I was working six and seven days. Hat, booties, singlet, jacket, the works.

-.-;

I agreed to this particular hat fiasco on the grounds that we go for a trip to the crackstore (The local Knitworld) where she will be selecting and paying for the yarns.

Since "she knows them better than I do and can make more appropriate colour selections."

(FYI: The brother-in-law hat incident was a year ago and she is STILL bitching on about it!)

In the meantime I have 2.5 socks to knit (Half of one of my new gym socks and a pair for Mum's birthday) and pointy objects to avoid.

Distractions FTW.

I'm just very glad the biscuit-kryptonite special finishes at midnight tonight. I'm going to blow out my pancreas at this rate. And your pancreas is important for staying alive.

~Peri



P.S
There is an absolutely MASSIVE spider trapped under the bowl from my baking scales in the kitchen. I mean SERIOUSLY MASSIVE. I haven't seen anything near this size since I was in Sydney! I'm too scared of it's twisted, angular corpse to dispose of it properly. This terror is a good thing, it shows that my M:TG distractions have allowed some emotions other than hating myself to temporarily re-emerge. Also a bad thing, coz I'm not numb enough to be able to rid my house of this horror. HELP!

Nighttime Terror

I think I may have almost remembered how to cry.

I forgot that I had a remedial massage booked for tomorrow.

I can't go, not with the fresh SI marks on my thighs.

Panic, panic panic.

Must rebook it and buy some teatree oil. Must.

Miles said he "wants to talk about what's going on" because it would be "helpful"

That, of course, was in direct response to a message saying I didn't want him to come over after his meeting and talk, because "talking doesn't help and people only make things worse"

He didn't want me to pretend around him, and now that I'm not pretending he doesn't like it.

This is what happens when you fall in love with a mask and then expect the thing underneath it to be identical to the prettily presented façade.

So much for attempting to sleep tonight. More terror.

Is he finally going to leave me to the demons? Is he finally going to remove the burden of guilt for being a bad girlfriend in the present tense and make guilt in the past tense?

Fuck fuck fuck if you're going to make me live fat and miserable you may as well just let me die, since fat+misery still means death. I'm at the second highest weight in my life and and I despise myself for it and you think my opinion doesn't matter AT ALL because YOU still find me attractive? So you opinion of my flesh is more important than mine? So you're pissed off that I don't wear the pretty opshop clothes you found for me anymore since I am now 4 sizes too big? So you're upset that I now find myself so repulsive that anyone touching me makes me want to claw my skin off? Fuck you then.

Hurry up and text me back.

Fuck I really don't know what to do anymore.

Why do I fuck everything up? Why am I such a failure of a human being? When will this all just fucking STOP?

~Peri

Fuck The Looking Glass

A week.

It's been a week since I nearly cried in front of the doctor.

A week since I obediently drove to A&E and handed myself in to Emergency Psychiatric Services.

Last Monday the weather was appalling. Rain and wind gusts strong enough that the E.P.S nurse, a fellow motorcyclist, opined that my driving in that weather constituted an attempt at suicide.

(Let's not talk about the drive chain so loose it could have slipped off at any moment and taken my leg with it, shall we? It's was fixed on Friday)

Today it's clear and cold, the bright moon showing a hint of black along her edge as she slowly turns her back on he big sister to stare into the void of space.

The weather outside almost mirroring the weather inside my head.

It's amazing how much can change in seven days, and it's amazing what doesn't.

I also find it amazing to discover that even though physical misery can have a detrimental effect on mood, it can also have a bolstering effect.

Still not sleeping, but I've worked out how many ibuprofen to take throughout the day to keep the headache in check. Not seeing things yet, and while time is increasingly slippery reality remains an unfortunately constant thing.

The grinding misery of sleep deprivation, the sting of the scratches on my thighs, the uncomfortable fullness from gorging on the junk food I'm no longer used to, the dry eyes and mouth and unsettled gut of dehydration, too-tight jeans biting into my stomach and love handles, the stiff muscles and numb toes of being improperly clothed for the cooler weather and the stuffy nose picked up a fortnight ago all combine to make me feel a little better somehow.

If I have to live, I'm going to torture myself every step of the way so I can punish myself for continuing to exist and waste time and resources better spent on less broken people. How dare I be so weak and selfish as to think I need to take up the overstretched resources of the DHB when there are others much worse off than I?

How dare I demand attention and time when there are people doing so much more with so much less than I have? The disabled guy from Produce who died a few months ago was such an inspiration to so many, how DARE you cry and flail when you've got all your faculties?

Disgusting, pathetic, weak, worthless, selfish, useless fuckup. Failure. Wimp.

Hurry up and die so you stop wasting everyone's time.

I can't wait for my days off when I can hide at home and pretend I don't exist.

At least the people who I haven't managed to drive away are all too busy raising their children/having lives or live in other cities so they can't come try to pry me out of home and make me feel worse.

Selfish, stupid, lazy, worthless, pathetic attention-seeking loser.

The John Kirwin ads playing on the staffroom TV during my breaks make me want to laugh or scream and throw the fucking thing out of the windows onto the one-way system in a hail of glass shards.

You were worried about my answer to the last question, huh? I'm on the DHB waiting list for "help" for the third time in 8 months. Ringing EPS won't do a damn thing to help me, honey. They'll stick me in a hospital with no internet and no knitting and no Dralion. Fuck that.

The neighbours are worried about me.



 I'm past worried. Past being worried or concerned or afraid or anything other than completely and utterly terrified of continuing to exist.

I'm not sure if the minor improvement in mood I've experienced today is the relief to be found in the wake of a storm, or if I'm simply in the eye of a never-ending hurricane.

Is it a temporary reprieve, the demons sated and preparing to hibernate for a few months, or is the mask I put on to serve customers melting through my skin and melding with my bones?

Am I not playing bullrush with death, but something more infinitely more subtle and deadly?

Hello, Alice.

One wrong movement, one slip, one break of the rules and it's not begin slammed to the ground with a broken bone, it's the death of a thousand cuts delivered by shrieking harpies while you stumble choking and blind in a sandstorm.


Whatever it is, I can feel the fraying of my pretence at normality.

I'm growing used to the constant lump in my throat, the constriction of my chest and the way my heart races in terror when forced to deal with other people and their insistence that I continue to exist.

The moment you get used to it, the moment you think everything has gone back to normal and that you can carry on and pretend your life isn't a blindfolded balancing act over a bottomless pit is the moment the rope breaks and you fall.

Something has to change soon, because I'm not sure how much more of me I can take.

At least I've forgotten how to cry, so I don't have to worry about ruining the mascara I don't wear.

The mirrors in my house are covered up, anyway. It's cheaper in the long run than smashing them and losing the bond on this place.

~Peri

Arohaina mai

Tried to make a vlog, but you really don't need to see me sleep-deprived and sniffling.

Summary:
1) Still not sleeping
2) Mood not improved
3) Managed to go one whole day without attacking myself
4) Thought of leaving house under any circumstances makes me panic
5) No idea how to survive my high customer-contact shifts on Monday and Tuesday, since I barely survived my slicing shift today
6) Mum is turning 50 this month. I'm making her a Nana-shawl in Austin Powers pinks/yellows to make her feel super old.
7) Dralion is adorable
8) I didn't learn to play a scale on the recorder, so I owe you a song. Three years of vocal training to get out of math class, nearly ten years ago. What song should I murder for you?

Guy at E.P.S asked me what I would want out of therapy. I asked for some more tools to help myself, since I can't rely on others or drugs in the long-term. He said I seemed to have a decent handle on it so far, but agreed that I needed more tools.

I forbore to mention that I really haven't had a fucking choice in the matter. It's been sink or swim and somehow I learned to doggy-paddle despite my family, "friends" and the attitudes of people I've tried to talk to in the past.



What I really want is for them to help me write a will then let me die, but if I'd said that they wouldn't have let me leave the building and confiscated my knitting bag with the "hidden" safety pin. (It's mainly there to hold my thread-cutting scissors, a stitch marker and a big blunt needle for weaving in ends.)



Miles loves Donnie Darko and that song, but I haven't told him why it's on my playlist of songs entitled "stuff".



Time to sleep, maybe. At least be somewhere warm for a few hours and try not to think.

I think it's safer not to think.

~Peri

Seems Legit

This is basically me in the kitchen with anything other than baking:






We'll just ignore the other night I made a tray of Sludge because I had a rage at myself and didn't boil the fudge long enough, 'kay?

~Peri

P.S. Sleep is amazing. Still not happy, but getting some sleep now.

Doctors,Scary Doctors

Got about 2.5 hours sleep.

Called in sick to work.

Went to the Doctor.

It was the usual Monday busy times, so I got to sit in the waiting room for about an hour, quietly panicking.

Parked on the inevitable row of chairs that pretend to have padding beside one of the REALLY FUCKING RUDE regular customers, quietly crocheting some more peggy squares, talking myself out of snapping into "plausibly sane" mode and fleeing the GP's office in terror.

Saw a lady who was doing a fill-in day to help the Practise out with staffing issues, told her The Truth.

(About 80% of it. I left out the bit about wanting to rip off my skin and carry out acts of Grievous Bodily Harm on anyone who touches me)

Oh my.

They didn't panic that much when I'd actually overdosed myself!

She asked if any of my scratched were infected, I lied and said no. (One is a tiny bit, coz Dralion stuck her claws in it by accident when she was DEMANDING headrubs. I'm attacking it with bepanthen)

She then rang the Emergency Department and Emergency Psychiatric Services and told them to expect me. She faxed E.D and E.P.S my medical notes, including a copy of the Mood Assessment I'd taken in to the GP last April. I got a medical certificate and letter of introduction for the receptionist at the E.D (OMFG I'm just going to call it by it's old name, A&E {Accident&Emergency}) and was point-blank told to be a good girl and take myself down there IMMEDIATELY.

It was so tempting to just go home and hide, but then I remembered that they have my address and phone number. A visit from men in white coats is a much less appealing proposition than going into their den of my own free will. Just to be safe I left anything they could confiscate at home, in case they felt I was a danger to myself.

A danger to myself? Me? Nah, bro. I'm fine! Honest! *Crossed fingers in pockets, direct unblinking eye contact*

Miles wanted to come with me, but I told him that with him there I'd be too tempted to lie my ass off like many times before, just to get the hell out of there.

The Duty Manager (DM) has my medical certificate, and Chatterbox was in a real pippy with me. Feeling her lack of authority alright, "Awesome Boss isn't here and we have no night supervisor so you have to give it to the DM"

(Chatterbox was originally hired to be the Night Supervisor. They hired her on as Deli Assistant with the understanding that she'd be made supervisor when she learned the job. When they found out how useless she is they declined to promote her. Her application for 2IC was also declined. This has made her somewhat difficult to work with. . .)

I have to ring Awesome Boss, since I told the DM I didn't know when exactly I'd be back at work, as I was going in to EPS and they may not let me out again.

I felt like such a fraud walking into A&E on my own two feet, safely smothered in my big red winter riding suit. (Cold front off Antarctica, the weather is shitting on us). There was a second-trimester lady who couldn't sit and couldn't stand and seemed to be in a hell of a lot of pain. I waited for my turn in line and gave the receptionist the letter from the GP.

Was asked if I felt comfortable sitting in the waiting room, and said I did. Got two paragraphs into an article on Bolivian Luchador-spinoff women fighters in National Geographic before I was called up.

Why the fuck was I at the top of the list and not the groaning-in-pain lady?

A nice man in scrubs took me out the back for a minute to make sure I didn't have anything on me to SI (or hurt anyone else) with and told me an EPS Nurse would be with me in a few minutes.

I never got to finish the article in NatGeo, I should have made a note of the issue number!

Seriously, it was the shortest wait time I've heard of in A&E for anything other than Pythonesquely Massive Bleeding or Accidentally Poisoned Children.

Someone from EPS came over and nobbled me within minutes, spiriting me away to a bare concrete room with Psychiatric Helpline posters on the wall I was meant to face, a lovely institutional radiator-heater under the window and some properly comfortable chairs.

There was even a box of tissues!

I got offered a cuppa, and then The Interview.

Despite being told that if there was even an iota of concern that I'd harm myself or others I'd be locked up. . .

I behaved.

Told The Truth, didn't make leap for freedom out of the window and kept the Dark-Humour/I'm-Fine-Really-I-Am jokes to a minimum.

Was honest about SI, losing chunks of time, being suicidal but not currently actively carrying out any plans, family history of mental issues, loathing myself for existing, knowing exactly how many paracetamol tablets it would take to kill me, overeating/comfort eating, the number times I can remember ODing when I couldn't afford enough to do the job properly, the headaches, the hallucinations and the times when reality just gets fuzzy.

He was honestly surprised that I had had no formal support or follow up in the past, until I told him about being forced to deal with Student Health's total incompetence and the DHB's complete unwillingness to touch a tertiary student.

So I now have a referral to some formal support, a card from the EPS I'm under orders to use if I get worse, a list of websites that should be more help than TheLowDown and ONE sleeping tablet.

That was yesterday, so now I have half a sleeping tablet.

EPS also rang me twice today to make sure I was ok, asked what my plans were for the day and said I was on the 'Emergency Waiting List" which means a DHB team should be in contact with me in a week or three.

According to the EPS nurse guy it "seems" that I have somehow "managed to get a decent handle on things" and that I "just need a few more tools in my toolbox" and a bit of help that they are only just now willing to give me.

It's not like I've had much choice in the matter.

I also know that things could be a LOT worse.

Where the fuck were they 15 years ago when I was last honest about how I felt and what Mum was doing to me?

Why do I still feel like I've just done a  Leroy Jenkins with Doctors instead of  Whelps?


Right now the part that acts sane and fine and normal is at the fore. Lalalala, no I'm fine it was all a joke, haha wasn't it funny guys? So long as I hide away at home I can pretend nothing is wrong, but that is a fragile mask of eggshells and flour glue that will crack under the first human interaction.

If I no longer want to live like this, I have to fight every second of every minute of every hour for the rest of my life (or until "normality" and "good mental health" are longer a deadly struggle and simply a way of life) or just roll over and die.

If I want to get the help I know I need, I need to keep being honest and not continue the suicidal path of serving up bullshit designed to convince the Powers That Be that I'm fine and not really a danger to myself.

Because I am.

I'm bloody surprised I made it to 20, let alone 25.

I sincerely doubt I'll make it to my Graduation ceremony, and lets just forget my 30th birthday.

Every birthday, Christmas or New Year is an unpleasant reminder that I'm still around.

A reminder that, despite all wishes to the contrary, I still exist.

If I want to make it to the end of this year I'd better damn well be strong and take this help, otherwise I'm going to be sucked out to sea while the lifeguards are looking in the other direction.



I'll tell you a secret: I was never a Magical Girl, I was pretending the whole time. I just have to hope I can find something inside of me that is worth fighting for.

~Peri