In Brief

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I feel like I have been behaving like the stereotypical victim. I have given in. I have stepped over the precipice and I am hurtling through darkness. I cannot catch my breath.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I Am Not Equal to this Challenge

Even life on the periphery can be complicated. I am still living in Nobby’s flat. I had a disturbed night’s sleep. I awoke, suddenly afraid but unable to identify the source of the fear. Upon fully waking up I felt empty. The world seemed cloudless, desolate. A watercolour in the drabbest colours you can find.

A voice in my head whispers, ‘Some thing’s going to happen today.’ A sense of vague dread had metamorphosed into stomach churning terror. And later that day his daughter died.

I turned to Nobby. ‘Will you stay with me? I mean, forever. Even when you know….’
‘Vacate my body? I’ll always be beside you. Even if its not in this form.’

I was sobbing. I felt like my heart was being squeezed by some giant fist. I needed to keep telling myself that it would subside and,finally, it did but a tiny shred of fear remained.

I went to the doctor’s to collect my prescription. When I returned to Nobby’s flat I was confronted by an entanglement of aunts, sisters, brothers, granddaughters and great granddaughters.

‘Granddad,’ the oldest grandchild said. ‘We’ve some really bad news for you.’ Then they all turned to me. I mentally slap my forehead : it’s a family conference and I am not ‘family’.

I gathered up my belongings said a brief goodbye and walked out the door. I walked across the green to my own flat. It was so cold and unfamiliar. Dust motes danced in a sunlit window. I didn’t feel at home. I hugged the walls, wondering what could be happening to Nobby., head in hands, saying ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me. Then I scolded myself ‘You stupid, stupid, stupid girl.’

I am so afraid
I am not to be depended upon
I am an untermensch
Someone of no consequence

Depths of the Night

This is stream of consciousness stuff so please forgive its idiosyncrasies and inaccuracies. I am so afraid right now. I am overwhelmed with anxiety. Or maybe I am letting myself be overwhelmed by anxiety (a touch of self administered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy there.) It’s the old free floating anxiety only ratcheted up so that now it is sheer terror. I’ve used this metaphor before but I cannot think of a more appropriate one: I feel as though rodents are gnawing away at my innards. The fear is within me and yet it is all around me. I cannot escape. I am a prisoner in my own skin. ‘Why are you afraid?’ people ask and then look baffled when I tell them that I just don’t know. My skin is tingling as if jolts of electricity are passing through me. Every part of me is enslaved by this fear. And the drugs that I am taking to help me combat this are not working. I don’t think I want to be here anymore. Not if it’s always going to be like this.