We all want to know how it ends.

…. And as the fetching (and not even a little bit gay) prince (in his tight white jodhpurs and brown thigh high boots) intentionally and carefully bowed his head down towards the blessed and fortunate princess (who was more than a little bit annoyed he was wearing her boots) and brushed his lips gently against hers (careful not to smudge her lip liner) a concerto of salient song began to rise from behind them (Ministry of sound presents the best of R&B 3)…

…And as the music played on (drowning out all thoughts of bronzed beach ready men, from both of their minds) and as he gazed deeply in to her crystal white eyeballs romantically, grabbed her tiny perfectly manicured hand and whispered (quite literally) sweet (FA) nothings in to her shell-like, together they decided cheerfully and deliberately to toddle off in to the fawning yellow, orange and red sunset…(Clearly for  dramatic effect)...

And of course,

The princess and the (camp) prince live happily ever after…

Yes, they lived happily ever after…

Er.

Hang on.

Did they though?

I mean, it is all very well ambling off in to the sunset on a nice warm day isn’t it?  Or, even, like in some of my favourite fairytales, splashing away in a rowing boat with a warbling frog serenading you with a Peter Andre hit, or even I suppose in a more realistic sense, driving away with tin cans suspended off the boot of your car and ‘Just married’ scrawled in shaving foam across your back window, but seriously?

Happily ever after?

What happens then, when twilight approaches and you realise that while you have been too busy hiking off in to the middle of nowhere, gawking in to one another’s openings to the soul, not only have you caught sunstroke and are now beginning to feel distinctly frigid and nauseous, but that he (the village idiot), being the self- centered, tedious and irresponsible imbecile he is turning out to be, forgot to bring the bloody coats?

It is a bit more challenging to gaze devotedly in to one another’s eyes, when your teeth are chattering incessantly and your nipples could cut through glass, isn’t it?

It is slightly more arduous to remain with the feelings of happily ever after, when you are vomiting in to an ice bucket and he is holding your hair back while checking out your arse, isn’t it?  (Because let’s face it. They probably do.)

What happens then, to the Happily Ever After, when you realise that while you have been too busy splatting about in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, enjoying the time spent with your singing frog and the man of your dreams, that you are actually in fact starving, miles away from the nearest Harry Ramsdens and that Prince Fumble in the jungle here, couldn’t catch a fish in a deep fat fryer?

OOOO I’m on a roll now,

And what happens, to the (spit it out now) Happily Ever After, when you arrive half a mile down the road from the church in which you just declared your undying love and betrothed yourself to him forever, when he turns around with a look of glee etched on to his features, starts waving besottedly at a 6 foot, perfect figured, big boobed goddess and starts advising you that this is, in fact his ex, she lives next door, he absolutely adores her and that you and she, will, no doubt, get on like a house on fire.

What happens then ey? (EY? A spade that’s what! A spade!!!)

AND what happens 3 months post Sunstroke-gate when she drunkenly forgets to reach for a condom, gets impregnated, tears her Tupperware from tit to tatters and ends up in a mental institute having spent too long chasing all her scattered marbles aimlessly around the living room floor?

What happens then ey?  (EY?)

I tell you what I believe would help maintain the happily ever after.

I believe that if all men, princes, paupers, kinsmen and blokes came with a handbook, life would be a lot damn simpler.  THAT’S WHAT.

I believe, that at the age of 19 there should be a mandatory handbook ceremony held for all men. (Mandatory like the army is mandatory in Spain. A civil service type agreement.)

From the ceremony until the end of time, they are to keep the handbook with them at all times. Through every relationship, through every argument and through every tryst, the handbook must be accessible for the female to read/use/study at any given moment.

The lady in question can then fill in the handbook as she goes along and when she deems it necessary, therefor preparing the next potential girlfriend for what is to come, and what she expect from this fellow without ever having to meet her.

PERFECT!! Don’t you agree?

Very immature, laughs at his farts, never does washing. 01/08/1999.Annabel.

Great at cooking, very bad wind and total commitment-phobe. 02-11-2001.Jane.

Picks his nose & eats it, can happily sit on loo for up to 3 hours. 09-9-2006.Meg.

Cooks a lot, great in bed but won’t wash knives and forks. 01-01-2008.Susan.

Generous, Lazy. Farts too much, moody, boring but great in bed. 07-07-2010.Lisa.

Needs another mother, never mind a girlfriend, also, pretty sure he is gay…  01.01.2016 .Princess Anon.

Charming my arse. 04.05.2020.Cinderella. 

That sort of thing, do you see what I am getting at?

I honestly believe that if all men came with a handbook, our happily ever after’s would be a lot more accessible.

We could window shop.

‘OO farts a lot, no thanks! But hmmm Great in bed, may be worth the excessive farting, hmmm may give it a go… oh no! Doesn’t wash the knives and forks! That’s a deal breaker, NEXT HANDBOOK PLEASE!!’

(Wouldn’t it also make life a hell of a lot easier if all ex girlfriends were then transported/shipped/kicked off to another planet entirely with no reception on their slutty phones, where they were forced to spend their days eating Pringles and watching ‘Psycho!’ on repeat? I think so.)

But anyway, back to reality with one hell of a bump.

There are no handbooks, there is no singing Peter Andre frog and there is no rest for the wicked.

Here I am, having gathered as many marbles back in to my quality street tin as I possibly can over the last 3 weeks, suitcase in one hand, Addison, Doodle and The Irish One in the other, about to walk out of the mental hospital for the first and hopefully only time in my life.

Addy, the Irish one, Doodle Mcpoodleson and I, all holding hands (Doodle walking on two legs like a real life boy- bless him, he has such abandonment issues) getting ready to stroll off in to the sunset.

I am leaving behind my crazy friends, I am leaving behind my own room, I am leaving behind my 15 minute observations, I am leaving behind the safety of being allowed to be mental, and I am heading off in to the big bad world, with a new set of coping mechanisms, a pot heart and a little leap of faith hoping to set me free.

I have tears running down my face as I say my goodbye’s to the home I have hated, sobbed in, been broken within, liked and eventually loved.

I do not feel ready, but then I am not sure I ever will.

Will I live happily ever after?

I doubt it. (For all of the reasons above, plus add in a gastro enteritis prone poodle, a toddler with a penchant for licking plug sockets, a pelvic floor supported entirely by Tena Lady and an Irish one that eats more cow than can possibly be healthy and a permanently blocked bog… the list is endless…)

But more importantly will I live forever after?

I plan to.

And really, that is what matters, I suppose.

*This post was sponsored by Post natal depression, the road to recovery, stamping it out step by step.

I don’t want to get off. (The Roller-coaster!!)

Drum roll for the crazy person please!

For the past 2 weeks while I have been existing (not living) in ‘the facility for the mentally incompetent’, and all the while delving in to the deep, dark and destitute corridors of my recollection banks and unearthing some pretty horrific memory morsels (or canapé’s if you will) from years gone by, I have also been managing to uncover a few forgotten activities that I thought were now completely redundant.

Yes for the last 2 weeks, as I have been living the celebrity dream, crying daily, feeling shards of glass in my heart relentlessly and wearing big shades constantly (to keep up the superstar image!) I have also been indulging in a few activities that I really had forgotten I enjoyed.

Stop being rude.

I’m talking about listening to music, reading a book and just pottering about.

Although, while we are on the subject of rude stuff. (Because you know how much I love it.)

Do you remember when I told you I was on 15-minute observations?

Well I still am.

And do you also remember when I admitted to you I self-harm?

Well I still do.

(Yes I am in hospital but no; being in hospital doesn’t magically make you better. It’ll take a while before they’ll manage to rid me of that age-old coping mechanism. I like self-harming, see. It makes me feel human. It is like anesthetic for my heart. Is it wrong to admit that? Does that make me weird? I don’t care. Self-harm is better than self-dead right? Right.)

Well Last night as the clock struck 12 and Fahalarki the night nurse was prowling the corridors with a Twix looking for some poor unsuspecting anorexic to torture, (I’m setting the scene here so bear with me) and while I was busy doing a 13 minute poo (from start to finish, just in time for my next check) and after a particularly bad day involving somebody painting a picture of my favourite handbag and then purposely drawing rain heading towards it (therapy is hard yo!) I was overcome by the emotion of it all and with flashback images of wet Gucci and ruined leather screaming through my psyche, I took to my stomach with a paper clip.

OK.

Took to my stomach with a paper clip, isn’t necessarily true.

But either way, let us just say I harmed my stomach, and this new wound combined with old scarring starting to heal, created a social hand grenade that the likes of PolPot (or even Kinga from Big Brother) could never have imagined.

Disaster.

I had jumped in to bed at the sound of heavy footsteps approaching my door and was having a good old scratch of the insistently itchy and semi healed scars under the covers, when who should bob her bedraggled and sometimes freaky, floating head around the door without knocking, but Fahalarki.

I was startled she had arrived as soon as she had and was concerned she would realise I had self harmed so jumped at the sound of her voice.

’15 minute check Lixy.’

As her eyes widened and she quickly started to back out of the room I realized the sheer atrocity of the level of her misunderstanding.

She had clearly been mortified at the sight of my elbow bobbing about at stomach height under the covers, a fact further heightened by the fact I was now acting like a rabbit caught in headlights and had now automatically and INCORRECTLY assumed I was erm… giving myself a treat? Starting to feel better? Finding my happy place?

You know what I’m on about right?

EX.CRU.CIATING.

Shouting protestations but not actually being able to explain what I had actually been doing (for fear of being caught self harming) got me absolutely nowhere but Shamesville Arizona.

‘Look Falahraki, I cannot tell you what I was actually doing but I wasn’t doing that ok?? There are a lot of things I can do at hyper speed in a 15 minute slot, as I am now finding out, but let me tell you, THAT ain’t one of them ok?’

I was wasting my breath. She was sniggering behind reception with Clarke the intern and I was now forever to be known as the ‘MUST KNOCK ON DOOR BEFORE ENTERING WOMAN.’

Not good, really not good.

But anyway, Can we move on now? (I don’t know why I share these things I really don’t!)

‘Sometimes you need to walk a mile in a man’s shoes before you could fully understand the extents he will go to, to hide the pain. Welcome to the Hotel California, please check your car keys, your sanity and any weapons of mass destruction in at reception and follow me to your room. You may notice the bedding smells of cat piss, but let us assure you, that is your illness, there are no cats here.’

I am pretty sure there must be but whatever.

I cannot believe I have been in here two weeks.

It is nothing like I expected when I first arrived all those moons ago.

There are no straight jackets, there are no wide-eyed, straight-backed shufflers scuffling about reciting the Lord’s Prayer and there is no nurse Ratchet. (Although there is one nurse who is a complete bitch.  I think there always is, in any hospital setting. The token hag that nobody likes and who likes nobody, but the less said about her the better… JUST GIVE ME SOME DIAZIPAN COWBAG!….sorry… moving on…)

Did I ever tell you that on the very first day I arrived (which now seems like 12 years ago), I spent so long meaninglessly ambling up and down the corridors, they assumed I was a pissed up alcoholic searching for booze and I was breathalised.  And clearly, as I haven’t drunk in months (ahem right) I was completely affronted!

‘But you look drunk Lixy.’ Fhalarkiiiii had assumed incorrectly. (AGAIN.)

I had just been admitted for god’s sake! I had been sobbing for 3 hours straight as the realization of what was happening, finally started to bleakly and sinisterly seep its way in to my consciousness. I wasn’t going to be able to kill myself (I couldn’t even be successful at that!) So I was imprisoned here, against my will, for the foreseeable future. I had shrieked and wept and prayed and pleaded, for them to let me go, I just wanted my son, my poodle and my own pillow.

Due to many a gushed tear, a heavily swollen face, the humidity in the air and eye sockets that could pass for boiled eggs, my contact lenses dried up and I was literally unable to see.

Now, clearly because of this I couldn’t walk in a straight line, I was tired and I may have been slurring my speech.

I was not drunk. I was delirious and did not want to be alone.

‘Oh you aren’t drunk Lixy? Ah well, sometimes you have to walk in a mans shoes….’

The above condemnation definitely wins most annoying saying I have heard in the recent weeks at the mad house 2011.

1)   Because I don’t want to wear another mans shoes I have my own, and have you ever actually put your foot in another mans shoe? They always feel wet! It is all kinds of wrong. Not going to happen. Like sharing socks. Gross. and 2) because it is a cliché and it completely redundant, in that no one would ever actually do this.

‘Excuse me? Are you depressed? You are? BRILLIANT! Can I borrow your shoes? Apparently walking a mile in yours will help me understand my own pain. What do you mean no? Oh you are size 5, never mind, thanks anyway.’

Facetious me?

Well I am allowed to be.

I have managed two weeks as an inpatient (I am pretty proud of myself incase you haven’t noticed.), and although I am slowly, as if wading through mud, making progress and maybe, somehow, possibly believing there may just be, potentially, perhaps an actual light at the end of the tunnel and that maybe, just maybe someone may have switched it on, I am still absolutely terrified of the future.

I feel as if I have been suffering with Post Natal Depression for so long, if that horrible debilitating illness is no longer settled in, and has been forced out, then what the hell will it have left behind?

Does that make sense?

Will it be like when a lodger leaves manky flooring, blue tac stained walls and old apple core’s in the drawers in the wake of thier departure? Will my life be like a black and white still of a 1930′s private eye’s office? (Just go with me. It just came to me.)

I am absolutely shit scared of going back to normal life, outside of the confines of these walls. Back to the unknown, completely unknowing.

Which is unfortunate as next Friday I am being discharged.

They feel the time has come, to send me back out in to the real world as a fully rehabilitated, swinging from the chandeliers, in no way ‘well’ but certainly ‘getting there’ mother of one, wife of none and empty woman of weirdness.

It has been one hell of a journey. A journey I would not be keen to repeat, which is why I am going to try my damnest over the next four days to learn some ‘shit’ to help me in the future.

Because I don’t want to end up back here, I don’t want to end up dead and I don’t want to end up existing again, instead of living.

I suppose the up side of being released however is at least when I get home I can scratch my stomach in peace. (Ahem.)

When was the last time you listened to music you liked?
When was the last time you stopped running 100 miles an hour?
When was the last time you stopped torturing yourself and rested?
When was the last time you made time for you?

*This post was brought to you by post-natal depression. Fighting but no longer winning. ME AND YOU OUTSIDE DICK-HEAD, NOW! And this time I’m bringing medication…

Hark at me. (No really!)

Don’t steal my chips.

I won’t even add an exclamation mark after the above statement because it is clearly an unwritten rule, and therefore, there is no need for one. Or twelve.

Stardate, captains log.
288 hours in to my stay. God knows how long remaining.
Ordered a Chinese and it all went tits up… which is a surprise… as it was all going so well…..

You may be duped in to thinking that as an in-patient, once you have overcome the first week and are feeling a little more at home in the institution, that you are safe from negative influences, all responsibility, accountability and even at times the weighty burden of obligation.

You may even be conned in to believing that the blatant disregard for your well being shown by some predators on the outside, the topsy-turvy emotional roller-coaster you have been on for over a year and your touching yet troubling turmoil over the simplest of mishaps, cannot lay a hand on you while you are beneath the metaphorical bubble wrap the hospital has you enveloped within.

The claustrophobic, prickly and anonymous walls that once used to imprison your soul, your beliefs and your ability to exist as an actress, slowly convert without you even really being able to lay a finger on when, metamorphosis (metahorphosissisize sp?!?!), like a caterpillar patiently waiting in a cocoon, in to a secure, sincere, encouraging and supportive environment.

The walls no longer seem oppressive, they reassure.

Dreams of escape slowly drain from your mind, like cow pat off a shit slide.

The walls become your liberator, allowing you to heal with no deadline.

You embrace and depend on them as you would a moat, keeping out the demons. (Of stupidity.)

You are wrapped in loving conversations, which feel like emotional cuddles, and gently they begin to darn your ruined heart.

Yes you remain disoriented and distressed, not used to having your pain completely exposed for the entire world to stare at, but from somewhere far above the realms of what you thought was possible and yet undeniably from beneath the horrific injuries and the internal damage, the sun tenderly begins to warm your back.

As the suns heat creeps throughout your soul, warming even the darkest, dampest and forgotten corridors of your history, you retreat to your now comfortable silence to bask in the much welcomed thaw.

Breathing in. Breathing out, leisurely and with discomfort almost forgotten.

Breathing in. Breathing out. Relaxed now and approaching the place which feels like home, somewhere between consciousness and sleep, where there is no evil, just weightlessness.

A feeling of floating, of flying, of freedom.

Of being safe.

Before long, in the company of others you are throwing your head back in raucous laughter without realizing, and truly for the first time in months are genuinely enjoying the company of those around you.

There are no stages here, no predetermined dialogues, monologues and interactions.

These precious people, you want to call friends and can, need no explanations and offer support without boundaries.

People you never new could exist in a life so dragged down by drudge, accompany you along the dusty and arid road to recovery.

You are each other’s network, sharing emotional supplies and touching insight between you all.

There is no punishment for ‘plodding’ here.

‘Hey Tracey, you alright?’ A greeting of hello.

‘Hey Lex, no I’m fucking shit you?’ An honest response.

‘Feel like I’ve been run over by a 16 wheeler actually, coffee?’

‘No tea please, leave it on the side, catch up tonight yeah?’

‘Yeah, see you later Cowbag.’ A touching farewell.

‘Later’s misery guts.’  I get it.

Friendship salvaged from the mangled wreckage left behind by months, years and sometimes decades of despair.

You may be hoodwinked in to thinking that if you could just stay here forever, if you could just never leave, if you could just exist in this place indefinitely you might be ok.

Imagine a life not bogged down by an illness that nobody seems to want to understand.

Imagine never having to hear the words ‘You just need to pull yourself together.’ ‘You just need to smile more’ or even my absolute favourite; ‘Stop being selfish!’

‘Just smile more Lexy and then your face will tell the rest of your body!!’ (Brilliant.) ‘You haven’t got an illness at all, stop calling it that for goodness sake! You know what you need? You need to stop acting strange and just be yourself. The person you used to be!’

Any depressed person will share with you these absolute peals of poop.

Because without fail, we have all heard them. (Yeay! lucky us!)

I like to call it ‘Therapy by dummies.’ (And wankers on occasion too, let us not forget about the humble wanker, he who knows it all but understands nothing.)

You may be fooled in to thinking that within the boundaries these walls provide, you have actually found the perfect world.

Nobody says these things. Nobody tells you, you NEED to do anything, that you SHOULD do something or that ‘IF ONLY YOU WOULD…’

It would be very easy to believe you have found the perfect world.

But you haven’t.

Because who wants to live in a realm where you just exist, instead of actually living?

I have come to realise, that as comforting and reassuring as this co- dwelling nut house can be, it really is just the start gate from where the shotgun fires you in to the race, for living the rest of your life.

Would you be interested in knowing how I came to this realization and stopped pestering the over tired night nurses to let me apply for some sort of equity sharing mortgage, so I could stay forever and ever and ever?

Some crazy lunatic bird stole my chips off my plate without even asking!!!!!!!

(Oops here come the exclamation marks! They have been threatening to overspill from my laptop in a gushing of click click sodding clickety clicks since the very start of this post…!!!!     ! !!… and one for good luck….!)

All those descriptive and magnificent words I just used to describe this complete mad house can be ignored in their entirety!

I am sorry for wasting your time.

It is a bloody mad house.

Admittedly it is a bloody mad house filled with some delightfully bonkers people (myself included) but please; let us not forget that you have not bowled up at ‘the hotel California’ bags packed with swim wear and suntan lotion, ready to relax!

Nor are you staying in a spa, or on a health farm (as many complete troll’s seem to think you are.) You are not here ‘having a laugh and kicking back’ but are undergoing one hell of a ghastly, grisly and gruesome journey accompanied by a job load of charmingly certifiable lunatics, just like you.

And I honestly think this rule can be applied to many areas of life.

(The chip rule. I’m on about the chip rule.)

Don’t you?

The road is long, with many a winding turn (thank you The Hollies) and yes there is support if you want it, and yes, life’s a journey, not a destination (thank you Aerosmith), and yes you can imagine all the people, living their lives as one (thank you John Lennon), but there isn’t going to be a quick fix, did you hear me?

There isn’t going to be a quick fix.

And if you have somebody there wanting to be your support network, maybe you should let them. Because ultimately there will always be some random nut-job lurking behind a corner, just waiting to steal your chips (!!!) And nobody should have to cope with that on their own.

Because it isn’t all about chips is it?

NO IT BLOODY ISNT!!!! (Not for me anyway.)

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCMENT FOR NORMAL PEOPLE.

Dear normal person, do not tell a soul suffering with depression to pull themselves together. That would be like telling someone with a broken leg they just need new shoes.

Dear normal person, do not tell a soul suffering with depression they are selfish, unless you would say the exact same thing to somebody recovering from a debilitating disease. If you would then maybe you should come and join me in here, because you clearly need psychological help.  (And the bottom of my boot wants to connect with your ball sack.)

Dear normal person, stop asking us why we feel this way. If we knew why we would just do something about it.  Why gets us nowhere! Try asking how? Or what? Or even better? Just shut up.

Yours truly,

MammyWoo.

(Self elected spokesperson for the criminally miserable and mentally perturbed.)

*This post was brought to you by post natal depression. Steal my chips and die. (Motherfucker.)

It’s Lima by the way.

Somewhere in between being sectioned (in to the mental hospital) kicking, screaming and making jokes, and this moment right now, where I am curled up in a ball on the bed catatonic staring at the bathroom door, I seem to have lost all capacity to think positive.

I can’t even laugh.

Not even at myself.

Which is peculiar because even in times of trouble (when mother nature calls to me singing words of wisdom…) I have always been able to find the funny, even if I am the only person in the room sniggering.

Friends and family ‘on the outside’ keep insisting, when they hear my hollow, tinny and tired voice, that ‘this place’ is making me worse.

I am maintaining and explaining on a regular basis that they are mistaken, that being in here is like taking a packet of antibiotics. Sometimes you have to get worse before you can get better.

‘It is a process. I will be fine. I am on the mend. Honest. I am. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be better in a week.’

I battle through the dialogues, summoning the strength from god knows where, trying to keep it jolly and bright, all the while the silent tears running down my face.

Are they right though? Is this place making me worse?

I have now been an, isolated in my own brain, and yet, friendly outgoing and maybe even quite popular to the rest of the world, inmate for 168 hours and 15 minutes.

It all started to go a bit pear shaped (like my bottom) about 21 hours ago, to be exact.

I was fidgeting with my knickers again, trying to get comfortable in my regular seat by the window (seriously, a size 16 rump in size 8 pants is just not comfortable! Sitting down actually hurts!) Waiting for the start of another session of group therapy. I was sharing this information, and the contents of my badly packed suitcase (NOT A EUPHANISM!!) with the rest of my fellow inmates and they were all laughing at me…

No, hang on.

I mean laughing with me.

With me.

Right?

When the facilitator sauntered in, took a look around, and began attempting to quieten us down to prepare for the start of the session.

Yes. I told him about my knickers. (And explained perhaps this could be the reason why I hadn’t cried recently, they were obviously cutting off the circulation to my tear ducts.)

This didn’t even raise a smile. (Miserable git.)

I had supposed up until this point, I had been managing on a day-to-day basis pretty well. As far as I was concerned I was an A* student.

I wasn’t wallowing in my depression, I had let my walls down, or so I thought, I was talking in group about real honest issues, pushing out the odd tear, allowing people to witness me sad, grabbing tissues, blowing my nose and then lightening the mood for everybody and having a laugh before I left.

Surely this is what they want us to do? Surely this constitutes ‘working hard on ones trauma.’

Apparently not…

According to the Scouser/miserable git, nobody had seen me vulnerable.

Vulnerable is a big word in here. It means you are making actual progress, not just surface progress. (Does that make sense? Because it has taken me a week to figure it out.)

This is the only place in the world where telling somebody you are feeling fragile, or running to your room in a dramatic flood of tears gets you a pat on the back. (And all your weapons of self destruction removed.)

I argued with him until I was puce and exhausted.

‘I am being vulnerable. I am, I really am LOOK!’ I stopped talking, pointed at my eye and pushed out a tear, my legs bouncing up and down like a jumping bean on a pogo stick ‘Look I am, I really am!’

He cast a glance around the rest of the group; all seated silently in their semicircular placed red armchairs, declining to make eye contact and looking at best; uncomfortable.

‘What do you all think, other random inpatients with absolutely no identity? Have any of you seen Lexy Vulnerable?’

The answer was a resounding no.

Treacherous bastards!

I didn’t get it.

There was too much to laugh at in here, how could one not laugh? Is that what they meant? That I was to stop laughing?

On the Thursday morning I had arrived the weather was scorching, I had dropped Addison off at nursery and had nearly changed my mind and given up then.

I don’t need hospitalisation! We could go to the park.

As he waved goodbye to me with the usual ‘bouy bouy!’  I had turned towards to the door, tears coursing down my cheeks.

‘Are you Ok Lexy?’ the nursery lady had asked me, a funny look brewing on her face ‘he is only on a half day isn’t he? Are you picking him up in 3 hours?’ The 3 hours pronounced slowly as if to remind me to ‘get a grip.’

‘No’ I struggled to keep my emotions under some ordinance of control ‘his daddy will be picking him up and dropping him off for the foreseeable future.’

‘Ah right,’ she said, a look of delight passing across her (thick bint) features ‘are you going on holiday? How exciting? Somewhere nice?’

‘Actually I intend to spend the next two weeks on the set of ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest!’ did not seem an appropriate reply, so I just nodded and fled to the sound of Addison screaming and the nursery assistants shouting

‘Have a great time on your jollies! You deserve it! Addy will be fine! BYE NOW!! Don’t get burnt!!!!’

I was a shaking snotty and grotty mess by the time I finally arrived at my ‘holiday destination’ and was met on my arrival by a nurse called Samantha.

My legs were threatening to give way underneath me as I handed over my car keys and watched my bags disappear.

‘When do I get my car keys back?’ I asked, my heart racing.

‘How long is a piece of string?’ came the reply.

Eh?

168 hours later and I still can’t fathom this riposte.

My head was royally and firmly placed up my arse, which was why I didn’t push it any further, as she gently ushered me in to a poky side room just behind the huge reception desk, and began to explain the admittance procedures, of which I have no memory.

I do however; remember cheering up considerably as she began to ask me a serious of completely random and obscure questions.

‘What colour are my eyes?’

‘Pardon?’

What colour are my eyes?’

I lean forward to get a better look ‘Blue, why?’

‘What is the date today?’

‘The 11^th of June I think, why?’

‘Can you hear voices?’

‘Pardon?’ (Seriously starting to consider that she isn’t a nurse at all by this point, and is instead an escaped lunatic playing a joke on me.)

‘Can you hear voices?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes of course I can! I can hear your voice, I am replying to you. Look if this is some sort of joke then I don’t really need this…’

‘No I mean, can you hear voices in your head?’ She interrupts.

I rock back in surprise and bellow ‘GOD NO!’

‘Good. Who is prime minister?’

‘Is this some sort of test?’

‘Can you just answer the question please Lexy? Who is prime minister?’

Now that I fully understand that this is a test of some sort, my nerves kick in to overdrive.

I must pass this test! I must pass this exam! IT IS A REAL LIFE CRAZY TEST!

Who the hell is prime minister?

As per sodding usual in these situations, as my nerves kicked up to wharp speed, my mind emptied all useful information out, and I was left with a big fat blank.

‘Erm, I can’t remember but I think there are two of them. Some sort of collaboration, association, alliance, agreement, DAMN IT! What is the word?’

‘Coalition?’

‘Yes coalition!’ I shout, pointing in her face convincingly.

‘Can you remember their names?’

I couldn’t.

Complete. Mind. Blank.

‘No. But I usually can. Honest.’

She smiles kindly. ‘No problem.’

‘Can you recite the five times table please?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I am numerically dyslexic.’

‘Oh, ok.’ She sighs, noting something in the margin. (Probably ‘bullshitter.’)

‘What year is it?’

‘1999.’ I pronounce, shooting her a big confident smile.

‘Pardon?’

Oh god what did I just say?????

‘2009!’ I shout, quickly correcting the mistake and then falling over myself in the realization that I am still wrong ‘2010, shit! 2011! Sorry….’

‘That is ok.’ (Clearly it wasn’t.)

Her final question should have been ‘What is the capital of Peru?’

Now that I would have been able to answer.

I have been keeping that tiny morsel of information for a rainy day, crossword puzzle, IQ test, pub quiz or test like this, but the question, unfortunately has never materialised.

The remainder of the ‘assessment for mentalists’ did not improve much from that point, and I suppose in all honesty I have spent the majority of my time since then trying to convince the staff I am not in fact fully insane, just a bit sad.

Which is why it comes as a shock to me to hear the friends, colleagues and compadres I have met and been completely honest with, since I have been in here agree with the facilitator and state they haven’t seen me vulnerable.

‘So if I laugh I am not being Vulnerable?’ I ask Barry haughtily.

‘Lexy, who the hell are you? Really try to hear me now. Your laughter is a coping mechanism; you don’t have to tell jokes in here. It is ok to feel anything and everything you feel. People will laugh with you. Not at you, with you, because I know you must sometimes wonder about that…..’

I curl up in to a ball on my chair, my forehead resting on my knees.

‘… But we are here to listen to you. The you that has been forced in to hiding for the last 10 years, You can drop the walls. You are finally safe. And we will look after you.’

As the meaning of his words sank through the very many levels of my consciousness, like sand through an egg timer, the weight slowly lifted from my shoulders, the quiet settled on my heart and the tension vanished, muscle-by-muscle from my body.

The proper vulnerable tears started not long after.

What does one do with ones self when the coping mechanisms you have learnt to rely on are pulled down, joke by joke?

What does one do with ones self when the coping mechanisms you have learnt to lean on, become completely redundant?

What does one do with ones self when the coping mechanisms you have learnt to trust, can no longer be found?

I walk out of the room emotionally buggered and feeling very much like a frightened child.

Fear of the unknown.

I can just be.

Wonderful.

I can just be, who?

Counting crows blasts out from my Ipod, as I remain, feeling like a teenager, curled up in a tight ball on my bed. It is 3am but sleep has long since evaded me.

My eyes are open but I see nothing, lost in a world so far removed from the world I have been living in. An unrecognisable, unprotected world.

‘This circus is falling down on it’s knees, the big top is crumbling down… These trained conversations are passing me by, and I don’t have nothing to say…. you get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way…’

It is like a packet of antibiotics, and mine have just kicked in.

Right?

It is like a packet of antibiotics and mine have just kicked in.

RIGHT?

*This post was brought to you by those awful demons over at Post-natal depression, who we would like to batter in to submission with a cricket bat. But are far too polite.

Don’t ask why. (Warning: Emotional Hoover.)

There is gravel under my skin.

As I march up the slight incline towards the prehistoric building where my morning therapy session is being held, I can feel it biting and scraping at my skin, creating irritation from the inside out.

I want to rip my own skin off and shake it out.

I am seething today, and it is only seven fifteen in the morning.

I am bubbling over with hatred, struggling to contain my disgust.

If I were able to, I would vehemently spit pure bile in my own eye.

The dawn air is bitter cold on my teeth and as I grasp at gaspfuls in an attempt to calm my racing heart, they begin to ache. I clamp my eyes shut and resist the urge to stand completely still, pull my hair out and scream in to the morning silence.

Create a ripple of angst in an otherwise numb millpond.

‘Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend, somewhere along in the bitterness yeah, and I would have stayed up with you all night, had I known how to save a life…’

The Fray is pounding out of my headphones headed directly in to the last remaining corner of my soul which still respond to stimulus.

I feel like a teenager again, drawing similarities from lyrics in to my own life. Struggling to feel anything but numbness or anger for more than just a second.

I am the friend. Aren’t I?

My eyes watering now from poorly concealed wrath which is burning inside me, I continue to plough ahead, onwards and upwards, as the stillness throughout the hospital grounds catches at my insecurities.

I flick my head around, my hair whipping my cheek for the third time in a matter of moments, once again for a split moment sensing somebody is walking with me.

There is nobody else around at this hour but me.

I am a lonely morning plodder in a world filled with Glums, and yet somehow I know you are here. I wish you weren’t. I do not deserve your company, especially not here, especially not now. But I can feel you watching me.

Is this a true sign of madness, or are you actually around me?

The sun peeps out from behind a bustle of angry black clouds which seem to be gathering in preparation for a stormy ambush, quickly and without even thinking I turn my face up towards it, trying, just a moment to feel the warmth, to feel some self- care in a lonely and agonizing world.

It quickly fades, giving up, and with it, so do I.

Like me, the weather is unable to decipher the way forward today.

Except I suppose I do know what is coming today.

That is why you are here.

Resisting the urge to shout abuse at Jeff, I push open the heavy metal door and stomp up the stairs, really settling in to ‘angry teenager’ mode now, and locate the correct room.

‘Room B3. A room for being a right royal misery guts.’

12 spacious pale red cushioned armchairs are placed in a jaunty semi circle against the back wall. In the center of the room opposite, another lonely chair sits waiting for the facilitator.

The room smells of sadness, mold and morning.

Nobody is here; I am the first to arrive.

This is nothing new.

I plonk myself down on the only green chair in the room, thankfully located by the window, and turn from the fray to Eminem.

Angry rap. Just what the psychologist didn’t order.  I kick off my wet shoes and fold my legs up underneath me, small comforts.

From here I can look down on all three therapy buildings, the garden and the back of reception.

From here I can watch the early morning goings on of a busy hospital ward, without anybody even knowing I am here. I like it. I feel like Jason Bourne.

But miserable. And without binoculars. And female. Obviously. (Maybe they could cast me in the sequel….call me Janet Bourne… hmmm… anyway…)

Jeff perches himself on the windowsill, gives me a cursory wink and turns around to have a nosy with me at the madness which is sure to erupt from below. Against my will I have somehow become like that man from the Shawshank redemption. Woman and bird. No library though.

I begin to wonder if Jeff will follow me home when I leave, or if maybe he is a therapist in disguise. It wouldn’t surprise me in this place. Either way, he has become my new companion, and I like him.

I don’t think he is lonely or filled with sorrow either. That clever little ditty may read one for sorrow but we’ve discussed it and Jeff and I are thinking of writing a strongly worded letter to the Oxford literary academy. We want action.  We want the shitty ditty changed.

One for Ice cream, maybe.

Yes. We like Ice cream Jeff and me.

One for ice cream.

Two for a dream.

Three for jeans that make you look lean. 

Four for Prozac.

Five for (liquid) gold.

Six for a friendship to really behold.

Seven for coffee

Eight for tea

Nine for a lie down under the tree.

Or something like that. Yes we like that. Jeff is nodding.

My (completely normal in the grand scheme of things) thoughts are interrupted by the whirlwind arrival of my favorite therapist Barry.

Barry is a Scouser, a jolly Scouser, who speaks the truth and makes me laugh while doing it. He is friendly from the top of his head to the tip of his toe. I imagine his wife and children feel very lucky to have him, I know I would. I trust him with my broken heart. I trust him to go easy on me and I trust him to know when to stop.

7 other mentalists, none of whom I am allowed to describe, and most of who will probably never check this to ensure I haven’t (but still), follow closely behind him and the session begins.

After a brief introduction, Barry takes off his anorak and gets comfy. (He must live by a train station.)

‘Who would like some help today?’

‘Oh fuck off!’ is spat out in to the silence of the room.

There is an audible gasp from yours truly, as I realise that horrendous language had come from me.

I am usually such a lady! 

Oops.

‘Lexy?’

‘I do not have an illness!! I just want to die!!’ My legs bob up and down in uncontrollable annoyance ‘I am not depressed. I just cannot be bothered to live the rest of my life! I am fine! I do not struggle to get out of bed in the morning, lord knows us mothers have no choice in the matter and I do not battle to put make up on or clean up, I do not find leaving the house particularly difficult and I can laugh until my sides hurt if something funny happens. It just never does!! I can play with my baby, I can make him something to eat, I can walk around Asda and I can take a bath and read a book, so surely, so obviously, so clearly there is absolutely nothing wrong with me really is there? You can’t be depressed if you can go and get your nails done. You can’t be depressed if you manage to smile on a daily basis and for the love of god, you can’t be depressed if you have hope for the future. CAN YOU? So can I just leave now please? Can I? I do not deserve or need to be here? I am a fake!’

‘What is making you angry today Lexy?’

(I bite down on my tongue hard. One fuck off I may get away with, but 2 would see me sent out of the class, my head hung in shame) ‘I just am, I don’t know why.’  (If I knew why I wouldn’t bloody be in here you Scouse muppet!!)

‘Try not to ask why,’ Barry mumbles in his thick Liverpudlian accent grabbing the back of his head and looking at the floor ‘it takes you inside yourself, instead ask what or who.’

I glare at him. If my eyes could speak they would be saying ‘DIE!’

‘Who are you angry at Lexy?’

‘Myself, my brother, Jeff the magpie, Myself.’

‘How does this anger feel?’

‘Brilliant. Like a hot sunny day!!! What the hell do you think it feels like???’ I catch myself and pause….’Overwhelming.’

‘Do you feel guilty?’

‘Guilty, upset, hurt, annoyed, pissed off, fucked off, irritated, ready to cry.’

‘What do you feel guilty about?’

‘Being in here, I should be with my son. I don’t need to be here! I am not ill!’ I stamp my feet.

Barry sits motionless and stares at me for what feels like an eternity.  I try very hard not to break the silence and am about to falter when he takes a deep breath and goes in for the kill.

‘Lexy. Tell me what you loved about your brother.’

An unexpected blow.

5 years of anger crumpled in to hurt by one single question. 5 years of sorrow and guilt, racing to the surface.  31 years of grief rising up and suffocating me, extinguishing the fury like water on a flame.

An hour later when the group slowly draws to an end, I head back to my room on the ward.

I am broken, and alone.

You didn’t follow me out. I assume you heard what you needed to hear.

Jeff did though.

So for the moment,

It is just my hurt, my magpie and me.

*This post was sponsored by Post Natal Depression. We would like to tell it ‘to fuck right off you sadistic bastard’ but are far too polite.

One for sorrow…(A magpie called Jeff.)

I am on fifteen-minute observations.

Or ‘1 in fifteen obs’ as they say in the business.

This is because I have a history of self-harm and am currently seen, during the settling in period, as high risk.

Red alert!! Amber warning!! Mentalist moose on the loose!!

This essentially means that every 15 minutes no matter where I am or what I am doing, a head will appear from around a corner, under a sofa or behind a door, nod at me, check a tick box and move on.

I have no idea what is written on that tick box but I imagine it to contain the following;

Dead/not dead. Delete as appropriate.

The person, whoever it may be, will then piss off for another 15 minutes before returning once again like a turd on a bungee rope to repeat the same action.

I do wonder on occasion if as their shifts plod by they grow ever so slightly fatigued with the same monotonous task and have to resist the urge to write;

Lexy Ellis. 1.20pm – Not dead but found crying in the bath, left her to it.

Or ;

Lexy Ellis. 1.35pm – Lexy located in room 42, bent over her armchair panting and scratching like an overworked Alsatian with a nasty flea infestation. (My eczema is really playing up.)

Or even;

‘I unearthed Lexy in her chamber decorating a noose she had fashioned out of a mangy old dressing gown cord; I have therefore removed any object from the room, including her dressing gown, which could potentially be used as a weapon. The bitch can walk around hiding her bushel with a hand towel as punishment for making me late for the next 15-minute obs. In fact, I may as well just stay here and annoy her for the next 9 minutes. I am then, in effect killing (the happiness) of two birds (me and her) with one stone. (I have no stone.)’

Do you get the gist?

It is tres tres bothersome. And they are tres tres useless anyway.

It isn’t like there is anything in this godforsaken padded cell I could attach a noose to anyway! Which was why I was actually, and pretty innocently just decorating my dressing gown with blue-tac. Honest.

There are no light fittings, not that I have been looking, the light just seeps in from the ceiling through pot holes and there are absolutely no prongs, knobs or spikes protruding from anywhere that I could do any damage with even if I was intent on doing so. Even the bloody shower is electric, meaning there are no taps and as with the lights, the water just magically appears through a hole in the wall.

(Just to be clear here, the lights in my room do not magically shoot water through a hole in the ceiling. They shoot light. Which is a relief as I would undoubtedly flick the wrong switch in the dead of night and end up accidentally exposing my self to some pretty horrific electric shock therapy on a very regular basis…. And think about the carpet. It would be soggy. No. The water is out of the hole in the shower, the light is out of the hole in the ceiling. Are we clear?)

So yes, my attempts at exposing myself to any kind of injury would be pretty futile.

Which does make me wonder what the point of ‘1 in 15 obs’ is actually for other than to create a situation of complete and utter frustration and annoyance for everybody involved.

Having to condense each and every action in to a 15-minute slot has actually resulted in me having to speed me up a notch, when I am sure the point of being in here, in the first place, was to slow me down a few thousand notches.

I am now officially known (by the plants and shrubs dotted around my room) as flash Gordon.

Shower in 15 minutes? With hair as long and greasy as mine? NO PROBLEM!

I can;

• Get naked
• Press button on wall 15 times so water heats up.
• Climb over and in to the bath (that incidentally I am sure has been created by the same company that makes the kamikaze type water slides) and slowly and precariously hot foot it, like one may when walking a tightrope, towards water spitter outter.
• Dry hump freezing cold tile wall to ensure water dribbles on to my back.
• Forcefully squidge bum against freezing cold tile wall to ensure water seeps on to my front.
• Splash about a bit for dramatic effect (while trying not to imagine it is actually just somebody stood behind the hole in wall ineffectively spitting on me.)
• Press button on wall 12 times to turn spit-like shower off.
• Try not to die getting out of death-bath.
• Get to towel rail on other side of slippery bathroom.
• Shiver myself dry using hand towel for 3 minutes.
• Remember have left clothes in bedroom.
• Make sharp naked exit from bathroom.
• Grab heap of clothes.
• Sprint like a white female and naked Linford Christie back in to the bathroom to dress.
• Nearly knock self out on savage swinging door as it spanks my rear as a reminder I am not the boss here.
• Heave jeans over gigantic love handles.
• Pull, huff and gyrate dry t-shirt with crow bar on to moist skin. Accidentally remove nipple in process.
• Place leg on to loo seat and lunge, in an attempt to stretch jeans. (This does not work)
• See clean knickers lying on floor, realise my mistake, scoop them up, shove them in my back pocket..

Just in time for Falalakalai, the bountiful and beautiful Nigerian nurse, to pop her head around my door (with a cracking 16 megawatt smile) and state;

‘Lixy! Yis! Alive! See you in 15 minutes.’

I wonder if they ever play bingo with us. They could use a point system.

Half undressed – 15 points.
Naked – 90 points.
Foaming at the mouth like rabid rabbit – 113 points.

Maybe I should make it more interesting for her.

I could do naked headstands, and half dressed handstands and the cross-dressed splits… actually. No forget that.

Although I am sure these actions would no doubt catapult Falakakakailii to the top of the league tables, I really have had enough of putting on a show to last a lifetime.

The real world quite literally spat me out and in to here with as much force as you would imagine a convict to be shoved out of a moving car, other than the above shenanigans, it has taken me a full five days to finally break to a halt and be in a position to have a look around and take stock.

I have to be honest.

There isn’t much wrong with my surroundings (shower, bathroom door, the fact I am completely alone and terrified, and a few other bits excluded obviously) it is when I look inside that I can feel the terror bubbling up.

I do not like what I see.  I do not want to look inside.

But there really isn’t anything else to do. (Apart from maybe shave my legs, but I have to be supervised with a razor! I have done many odd things, and will no doubt partake in many more random things in my life but I ain’t shaving my legs and pits with someone watching! It is too weird!)

Therapy sessions are helping, but it is slow moving, and I miss Starbucks.

This afternoon I have a free afternoon with no group therapy and I want some time alone, and not just in 15 minute blocks.

I need time to sit and examine what I feel put me in here, other than the obvious ‘not having the energy to, and not wanting to, live the rest of my life.’

I am going to have to channel Steve McQueen, dig a tunnel, escape, find a hidden tree and sit under it. I have my notebook, a picture of my loved ones, my Ipod and a small packet of tissues.

Since I have been here I have felt unable to cry, even though I have desperately wanted to. I seem to have settled in numbness. So I am going to sit on my own, avoiding the one annoyingly lonely magpie which seems to be following me around conducting it’s own set of Obs (I have named him Jeff, maybe I can be the 2 to his 1), and write.

I have to be brave. I have to fight for the right to be me, even from myself, if that makes sense.

It is terrifying.

I am starting with a letter to myself, in an attempt to forgive myself for being ill. I have been told to start it like this;

Dear Lexy.
It is not your fault.

The tears of guilt should not take long to appear.

I may even listen to a bit of music. (I want to break free, would be too easy a joke here… but fuck it. I’ll use it anyway.)

Now, where did I leave my spade, sparkling white t-shirt and motorbike?

*Mission impossible music clicks on and the voices in my head crouch down in preparation*

I push the door open and stick my head around, as it creaks eerily I peer in to the long, dimly lit and decrepit corridor. Other than a few odd bods bouncing off walls all I can see is Falakalikalaka chomping on a dairy milk with her back to me, it is now or never Stevie. .. Go go go!

I make a run for it.

The tree is my goal. Any tree. Preferably with a chair.

Sanctuary (not sanitary, as I still have my knickers in my back pocket) is my light at the end of today’s tunnel…the journey has officially started.

Dear Me.
Do I sound less crazy yet?

Ann Glummers.

What does one pack to stay in a lunatic asylum?

The answer all though you may think simple is actually a recipe for disaster.

Let us examine the evidence.

Your head is west, your soul east, your mind north, and your boobs, as always… pointing south.

Couple this with having to put ones case together in the dark to avoid waking and therefore sobbing all over a small boy you are not sure you should leave, not actually wanting to go, a hefty amount of denial that anything is wrong with you in the first place (other than being a drama queen) and you quite literally have created a situation that I would have to liken to letting go of a social hand grenade in a heavily populated crazy house.

Also, let us not forget you are still two stone heavier than you believe you are and the climate has been temperamental to say the least.

Are you dying to know what I brought?

I honestly was.

I had absolutely no recollection of packing at all and was shocked to see the sheer volume of luggage waiting for me, piled dangerously on the single bed when I arrived in to my room.

2 heaving pale pink mucky rucksacks, one snowboard sized (body bag felt a little inappropriate an adjective here) sports bag, a bursting glittery river island ‘hand bag’ (Aka cargo carrier) and the age old and ever present plastic Aldi bag (you can take the girl out of Eccles…) were all sat anticipating my arrival.

‘Are these the bags you packed Lexy?’

I walk towards them slowly trying to banish thoughts of running home and back in to the arms of the Irish one and Baby Woo. This is too strange a place. My head is too strange a place. I do not live here. I do not know if these are the bags I packed.

But I must have done.

‘I think so yes’ I whisper, moving over to the window and looking outside. Completely lost and yet feeling a little bit found.

‘Ok honey,’ the young nurse continues kindly from behind me ‘are you ready for your bag search?’

‘Bag search?’ I gasp turning around, my breath catching in my throat, my heart beginning to hammer in my chest.

‘Yes, we have to check your bags to ensure you have brought only relevant items, this may seem a little over the top but I am sure you can understand’ she declares snapping on a pair of plastic gloves and looking nervously at the mountain of crap still piled precariously on the bed.

Flashbacks of the night previous scream through my subconscious mingled in with movie stills from Sandra Bullock in 28 days. (Jeremiah was a bullfrog….)

What the hell did I pack??

I am struggling to separate the two mangled thought patterns when a single memory pushes to the forefront of my mind and my bowels audibly turn over in a fit of horror.

Jesus Christ.

Please tell me that in my fog induced state, I haven’t packed my dildo.

Wading through my muddy memory banks trying to recall the last time I saw my neon pink rampant rabbit, a man walks in to the room and I almost pass out.

‘I hope it is ok Lexy but I need to be here to process everything too, it shouldn’t take long and then we can leave you to make yourself at home…’ Nick the ward manager fiddles with his handle bar tash and feels out behind him for a chair.

‘Ok, no problem’ I whisper praying my bowels don’t release all over the floor and hopping from one foot to the next.

There is a lot to be said for ‘living in the moment’ but to be honest at this point; dying in the moment seems more applicable.

Trying to vanquish thoughts of Nick in leather chaps from my mind (it’s the tash, I keep wanting to call him Kenneth,) I turn towards the window, leaving my back to the room. My very own metaphorical escape attempt, and believe me, this is the kind of room, led to by a deserted and lonely corridor, you would really want to escape from at the best of times nevermind when you have the cast of ‘carry on the crazy’ stuffed in there struggling for breathe with you.

My home for the foreseeable future is a cramped and murky cream carpeted quadrangular room tagged on to the end of an eating disorder unit on the upstairs ward of the hospital. It has an adjoining triangular bathroom off to the right, which can be accessed through a heavy and vicious swinging door.

(Mental note to self; when desperate for a wee, do not PULL door out towards you, walk in to the bathroom and then grapple for the light switch back on the outside of the wall as this will clearly leave your arm exposed to the down right sinister and hit man-esque rebounding door. The pain you will feel as it crushes your radius (posh word for arm bone) is in no way similar to self-harm. It is just ruddy painful and you could really do without it. Follow this process dick head, and you should be fine. Flick light switch, PUSH door in and then wee. Simples.)

There are two bay windows beside the single bed which look out on to the communal garden (occupied with nutters lounging around on bean bags – I should fit right in) which give the room a light and airy feel even though the room itself, even without me in it, is quite cluttered with stuff.

A giant mahogany wardrobe, a matching wooden and outsized desk fitted with lockable draws, a slightly bigger than single bed and two large bedside tables have also been crammed in to the room, along with a hardback desk chair and a deceptively comfortable (but not at all) armchair by the door, which Nick himself is now perched in, flip board balanced on his crossed knee, and pen poised and awaiting instruction.

Hopping from foot to foot in the corner, and trying not to make eye contact with either of my unwelcomed guests I attempt to open the window.

Unfortunately, as I then find out, the windows do not open very wide; presumably to stop you from committing dildo induced Harry Carry.

‘Ok, here we go. Nick, if you can make a list, I will start with the first bag.’

From behind me, I hear her as she unzips the full length of my horribly kitsch bursting at the seams hold all and is accosted by an explosion of fabric. She takes a deep breath and dives in.

• 1 long cardigan. Beige. I think what she meant was; could have once been described as white but now resembles the colour Dulux would probably label ‘Ingrained dirt.’
• 1 pair of trousers, size 10 she looks up at me dubiously before continuing Navy blue. Half a powdery white tablet in the pocket.

My heart stops beating.

‘Lexy, I am hoping this is a Paracetamol but either way’ she sighs, turning it over for examination ‘it will be confiscated and put in clinical waste’

‘Umhum.’ I reply, returning back to watching the mentalists out of the window while beads of sweat congregate at the base of my spine. ‘It will have been a Paracetamol, I don’t do drugs. Not anymore anyway, I used to but only recreational, not like…’

‘Stop talking.’ She interrupts. ‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘Yet.’ I panic to myself, while enduring visions of her pulling out a swirling whirling mechanical cock from the bag and saying deadpan,

• One penis. Hardly used. Size Large.

I turn back to the window and concentrate on breathing. The stomach clenching torture continuing from behind me.

• One pair of jeans. Size 12, light blue. Ripped.  Scruffy bitch.
• One high-heeled shoe. Size 5. Green. Yes, just one.
• One hooded jumper. Red. That stinks of vomit.
• Another high-heeled shoe. Size 5. Blue. Eh?
• One seemingly ancient teddy bear with one eye missing. Wearing a dinosaur print baby-gro. That’s fat-tum. My childhood bear. *Cringe*
• One packet of fragrance free Asda brand baby wipes. Huh?
• One pair of leggings. Black. Gusset torn. Oh god I brought the old ones.
• Two packets of new Asda knickers size 8. Seriously? Size 8? For the love of god! What planet was I on? Wedgie.com! FFS!
• One make up bag containing a shit load of powder covered crap. She may not have said these exact words but everybody in the room was thinking it. Even fat-tum. (Who was probably also a bit pissed off to be wearing a baby gro. He is 31.)
• 2 wonder bra’s, one black one white. Shhh! The secret is out. I no longer have boobs but used condoms hanging from my breastplate. Ahhh the magic of motherhood. Never mind empty nest syndrome. I have empty breast syndrome.
• A single and lonely croc. Red. I’ve lost the other one but I love them.
• A laptop.
• 5 Pamper’s size 4 nappies. 2 things are wrong with this picture. Why the hell have I bought nappies? And Addy is in size 5’s anyway… Go figure.
• More Asda own baby wipes. We never have wipes at home? Where have these all come from? Poor Irish one, he is in charge of a child and has been left wipeless. I’ll pray for no gastro issues.
• A hairbrush, hidden under a wigs worth of dead hair. Gross. But… fuck off. It’s motherhood. Not my fault I am now the proud owner of a mullet.
• A pair of black Ugg boots. Size 6. Prized possession. At least I brought something right. She thinks, sweating in a t-shirt.
• 3 t-shirts with various designs on them. All dirty.
• One little black dress. What night is vodka night?
• One pair of GHD hair straighteners’ held together with gaffa tape.
• One pair of glasses held together with gaffa tape.
• One sports sock.
• One black sock.
• A mobile charger held together with gaffa tape.
• A hairdryer held together with gaffa tape.

‘And that’s it Lexy, so we will leave you to it…’

I turn around incredulously and stare at the empty bags. ‘Is that all?’ I stutter? ‘2 odd shoes, knickers that are going to stop the circulation to my upper body, but no willy? Thank god for no gaffa taped willy! There is No Way that would have passed the Pat test!’

I am too overjoyed with the outcome to realise what I have just spluttered.

She laughs and winks at me as Nick shuffles out of the room coughing and spitting in disbelief. (What? I’m crazy! Your bum hangs out of leather pants at the weekends! I’m almost sure of it! Sod off.)

‘There are a few articles we will need to take with us to be pat tested, I would imagine that most of your appliances held together with gaffa tape will not be returned until the end of your stay here, as they may accidentally set the building on fire. Please try and get some rest now honey, as your therapy will start in the morning. If you need anything just shout.’ She quietly closes the door behind her and I am completely and miserably alone for the first time in 15 months.

‘There is nothing I want to do more now or need to do more now, than go home.’ I whisper to fat-tum silently. ‘I want to go home.’

Post- natal depression should not hold stigma.

It is a living hell. One that needs to be taken more seriously.

It is robbing me and millions of women of thier lives, loves and glitter.

I think about my son and how I won’t see him for weeks before picking up my heavy heart and heading for the mystic garden.

Surely I am not the only Glum Mum in the village…

Footprint in the sand.

It was all going swimmingly well.

I had decided over a Mcflurry not to kill myself and was managing, on most days not to flirt with the idea of driving at 80 miles per hour directly in to a brick wall.

Things were looking up.

And then they weren’t.

It was as simple a shift as that.

Everything was going wrong. Even the small things I used to be able to manage with ease, even the small pleasures I would take for granted, became un-climbable mountains.

My pizza was burnt, my socks didn’t match and no matter how hard I tried to enjoy it, my coffee was tasteless.

The world lost it’s sparkle, my life lost it’s meaning and I just couldn’t run any longer.

There was no hiding, around every corner, behind every task, the horrible truth was staring at me in the face.

It would jump out at me with every breath I took.

I didn’t want to be a mum anymore.

I don’t want to be a mummy. I just want to be me. I don’t care about life anymore. It has no meaning.

In my little boys eyes I was supposed to see meaning, but there was none. In my little boys smile I was supposed to feel a soaring, but there was none. In my little boys hand I was supposed to find the strength to protect him, but there was none.

I couldn’t be bothered to live my life anymore, not even for him.

What kind of horrible awful person thinks such thoughts? I deserved to be dead. Nothing more. Nothing less.

One by one, all the spinning plates I had been struggling to hold up, while keeping, of course, a big fat fake smile on my face, came tumbling to the floor, one by one and me? I allowed myself to fall down with them, finally.

I lay there for hours, in the dark with the scattered remains of my life laying in shards around me.

Nothing mattered. Least of all me.

As far as I am aware, the car drove itself to the hospital.

I have since been told I was at the wheel.

I found myself sitting in a group therapy session supposedly centered around self esteem.

One last shot to tell somebody. One last chance to see if I matter, one last chance to prove I don’t.

‘Lexy, how are you today?’

Be honest Lexy, this is your last chance to be honest.

‘Well Paul,’ I spoke slowly avoiding eye contact, staring at the wall and trying to make sense of what was about to happen  ‘I have told numerous people I want to die, have admitted to countless friends I no longer want to be alive… But the thing is though Paul. Nobody can hear me, I won’t let them, nobody can care, I won’t let them.… But the thing is Paul…’ I repeat, looking him directly in the eye, the tears coursing down my cheeks ‘I want to die today… and nobody is allowed to care, not even me.’

And in that moment, I saw somebody staring back at me who may not know me, but who had heard. Not just listened, but had heard, and I hadn’t had a choice in the matter.

Salvation.

And with his kind words, direct action and understanding smile, a man called Paul saved my life.

Thank you Paul you are one hell of an amazing person and I will never ever forget what you have done for me. You are precious.

And in that moment, life as I knew it was over. Forever.

Is that a little dramatic? Well come on now, give me some credit here, I am building up to the big finale.

The following day (BAM BAM BAAAAM!) I was admitted in to a mental hospital for the utterly depressed and the criminally insane.

Ok. No, not really the criminally insane, but it sounds beefier doesn’t it?

What follows over the next few weeks will be my story, and mine alone.

My journey.

Searching for that illusive light, at the end of the sewage tunnel.

(In a full-on mentalist hospital! Woo woop! I am henry the 9th I am, henry the 9th I am, I am….)