Kiss the Rain. (Hello? Can you hear me?)

I see all these amazing mums, doing all these amazing things, like baking cakes, making chickens out of paper cups using only snot and lipstick, getting their kids to eat vegetables without an epic discussion or fight before every mouthful and I always stop and think… WOW! I should get them to do some stuff for me.

My best friend throws her head back and laughs heartily.

‘You are an amazing mum Lex, look what a happy boy he is! Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘I don’t bake though Jules. We once made Peppa Pig ready-bake cakes and I managed to smash a pan lid to smithereens. He cut his feet, I sliced my hand, and they came out burnt and stinking of death.’

‘Yeah but…’

‘And we weren’t even using a pan!’ I interrupt her passionately ‘We were using a baking tray! I’m ridiculous. Also, I’m scared of eggs. What kind of mother is scared of eggs? It’s ridiculous!’

‘You don’t have to be able to bake you know, and so what if you are scared of eggs, I am scared of beans, as long as they feel loved, that’s what kids remember…’ she falls in to silence as she notices I have become instantly distracted.

‘Did you hear that?’ I ask her, my eyes wide, my head up like a deranged Meer cat as I peer through the Cafe crowds at soft play.

I am both hunted and hunting, ‘someone called my name.’

‘No,’ she picks up another chip, and continues to remind me of why although we are both not perfect, we are good enough… but I am lost.

I am haunted.

Someone is calling my name.

An hour before this conversation took place I was in a jam packed, bursting to the rafters H&M trying to purchase my toddler some new jeans.

The Creature that God Sent to Test Me, as I have now taken to calling him (we are potty training) was following me around moaning about wanting to go on the ‘tunnel slide’ and leaving behind him a trail of ice cream and muck so distinct, Hansel and Gretel would have been proud to call it their own.

I was too hot, harassed and tired and I needed a wee. My bag felt like a dead weight on my back and we had been there, traipsing around for far, far, far too long. (6 minutes.)

Nevertheless, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, if I could only find the boy a much needed pair of jeans (ones that grow with him ideally and are made of durable denim, or perhaps tear resistant steel) we could leave and head happily off to the soft play Centre (of doom.)

So on I continued with my courageous battle through the tightly packed rails of H&M children’s wear, trying to gallantly locate a pair of trousers for him that weren’t either 8 inches too long in the leg or had a girth that would fit a midget father Christmas.

I may write a letter to all children clothes shops, actually.

Dear (Stupid, stupid unhelpful) People who Make Kids Clothes,

Just because my son has long legs does not mean he is as fat as a pregnant Umpalumpa. Tall kids are generally not fat waisted, and short kids are generally not super skinny OR fat waisted. Please sort your heads out. Kids come in all different sizes and shapes.

Please consider making some trousers with skinny waists and long legs. OR at the very least offer us a plethora of belts.

Also, Have you any idea how annoying it is that you don’t all use a generic sizing chart when making your clothes?

Asda George, you seem to think a 3 year old is the size of a small widowed Spanish grandma and your Newborn sized Onesie’s could potentially fit the Irish one! You do realise we aren’t a nation of giants, right? How big do you think a birth canal is??

Where as H&M! You seem to think 3 year olds don’t even exist?? You size your clothes age 2-4. THAT IS A BIG YEAR TO MISS OUT UNDER THE MISGUIDED ASSUMPTION THEY STAY THE SAME SIZE!! Think about it H&M, nobody ever mistakes a 2 year old for a four year old do they??? SORT IT OUT!

Yours truly,

Lexy Ellis.

Anyway.

Eventually, after he had lost patience and started playing up in protest, I had asked him to stand still 26 times, dangled him by his limp arm in an attempt to keep him upright and he, insisting it was time to lie down, had spun from my upheld hand like a Christmas tree decoration, after I had chased him out of the shop and back in 11 times, apologised to a man who had been inadvertently head butted in the scrotum (not by me, by the toddler) in the ensuing kafuffle, he finally gave up, and so did I.

He wanted to lie down on the floor and sing The Wheels on the Bus and I needed to buy jeans, so in the end I decided we should both just do what we needed to do, to get the job done.

So we did.

‘THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO BANG! BANG, BANG BANG BANG POO!’

Eventually I almost euphorically, located some jeans I thought might fit and decided it was probably high time I put a stop to the Wheels on the Bus Remix which was emanating from below the Skinny leggings and Sock shelf.

It was at this exact moment, while turning to wrestle Addison off the ground, with three prim and proper good mothers staring at me with barely hidden judgment from behind their pristine prams, one 16 year old sales assistant tutting about my apparent lack of parenting skills, and the man whose balls were clearly still stinging, singing a high-pitched solo in the corner, it happened.

“Lexy? OH MY GOD!”

I whipped my head around to see whom it was, and rather frighteningly was met, by nobody.

Have you ever met a person who freely admits to hearing voices?

Like real voices in their head?

Not thought voices.

Not the ones I assume we all experience, those that whisper to us from inside our mind, sometimes telling us we are useless, or maybe sometimes amazing, or perhaps we will win but maybe we won’t. The thought voices, reminding us of things, that sometimes we speak out loud. (Right? we all hear those right? RIGHT?)

Not those voices.

They are just our thoughts aren’t they?

I mean actual voices.

You probably don’t think you have ever met anyone who is that shit on the bed mental crazy before.

I am not sure we are supposed to talk about it.

Us bat shit poorly crazy ones.

I think we are meant to be ashamed, embarrassed, too frightened to share.

But I want to.

I am not weird. (Well, I may be a bit bonkers, but according to the Mad Hatter, all the best people are.)

I am normal, I laugh, I joke, I cry, I am a mum, I change nappies, I eat, I watch telly, I let the dog out, I eat cake, I do a weekly shop, I get on with my life, I am planning a wedding, I am looking forward to this year.

I hear voices.

Maybe if I talk about them, the voices, maybe if I explain them, explain what it is like to hear them, I will feel less alone, less frightened.

‘Radio Chorley!! Coming in your ears.’

That is what it is like.

They are in my ears, not in my head.

SO real.

Just. THERE.

‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!’

His shouting wakes me with a shot of electricity straight to my heart.

I jump out of bed, stub my toe and sprint, hop and curse to his bedroom, where I expect to find him in the throes of a terrible nightmare.

The house is in darkness, nobody has stirred, not even the dog.

As I lean over his little body, physically shaking from the shock of the noise, the urgency in his voice, poised and ready to pick him up, hug him to me and soothe him from his bad dreams, I pause.

His breathing is long and measured.

He is fast asleep.

I have a great sense of unease as I crawl back in to bed and try and get my toe in my mouth to suck it better. (Don’t tell me you never considered trying to suck your toe when you’ve stubbed it, even the mere thought of sucking it eases the pain, right? RIGHT?)

‘What’s up with you?’ The Irish one turns over and dumps his arm over me, in an attempt at sleepy Irish tenderness, that instead nearly knocks me out cold.

‘I heard Addison shouting.’

I am bent over, clinging to my toe, rocking back and forth.

(So don’t look mental at all.)

‘I didn’t hear a thing.’ He snuffles and falls back in to a comfortable and cosy sleep.

I lie there staring at the ceiling terrified to my core, for a long time before I succumb again to peace.

I am in that beautiful place between awake and sleep.

I am floating peacefully about to drop off,  I am a literary genius, I have just thought of an amazing blog post I can write (which I blatantly won’t remember tomorrow) and I am as light as a feather, I am almost asleep.

‘LEXY IT’S GONE, IT’S GONE!’ the shriek is right next to my head, down deep in to my ear canal.

I physically jump four feet in the air.

I switch the light on and start to shake.

‘Huh? What is gone?’

I am frightened.

It’s hard enough being a half decent mother who plays trains but doesn’t cook, reads books but doesn’t sing lullabies, eats dinner with him but not vegetables, stares miserably at an empty potty while changing another nappy, soothes her baby’s tears and fixes bumps and bruises but doesn’t know how to make cupcakes, without the added worry of hearing voices.

They have started laughing too.

Sometimes I just hear laughter.

They are happy.

I smile with them sometimes before I remember nobody is in the house except me and nothing is funny.

It’s coming in my ears.

I hear someone calling my name a lot, but no one is there.

I am perfecting the deranged Meer cat look. Someone must have called my name! Who said that?

I hear dogs barking, right next to me, in the office. (I do not work in a veterinary surgery either, just to be clear.)

It isn’t a conversation.

It’s not like I can blame them for making me eat cake.

They don’t tell me to eat cake.

Lord knows I don’t need to hear voices to do that.

I hear words.

I hear made up conversations.

And it isn’t all of the time.

It’s enough though.

I don’t answer them.

Then I would be crazy, right?

I need to focus on what is real.

On the voices that aren’t part of my mental illness.

My illness that started innocently enough, by just having a baby.

‘You are an amazing mummy.’

My best friends voice is the one I am trying to hold on to now.

I am doing my best.

The jeans I bought him don’t fit.

But I love him so much it hurts.

Is it ok to tie your son’s jeans around his waist with rope?

Please don’t make fun of me.

Or treat me any different.

I am frightened, and I am trying to break the stigma.

But I am normal.

Did you just hear that?

Of course you didn’t.

Nobody is there.

Beauty and the Buffoon.

I guess you could say, I am not your average Disney princess.

If they ever do decide to make a musical fairytale however, about a self harming, suicidal, manic depressive and slightly paranoid flabby woman, with a penchant for tattoos and wearing fake eye lashes, who gets sectioned but fights hard to get better, finds a man, hates him, loves him, hates him, loves him and eventually agrees to marry him and walk off in to the sunset with him, joined by a crazy 2 year old and a dog with an explosive rectum– then I would be totally perfect for the part.

Until then though, I will keep trying to fit my square peg fantasy in to the Disney round hole.

I am all in a dither.

I guess I should mention that I no longer smoke (2 weeks without nicotine and the Irish one is lucky he still has both of his eyebrows, he is doing my head in!! But on the plus side – I can breathe and food never tasted so good, honestly! Chocolate tastes insane!) So, anyway- where as usually I would be puffing away right now, stressed as I am, I have instead inadvertently ended up stress eating mini jammy dodgers.

It’s ok though, these little coins of Jammy Gold won’t affect my wedding diet (the anti thigh rub diet, as it has come to be known) as everybody knows if no one sees you eating them the calories don’t count, and also I have my eyes closed in the hope my hips just won’t notice.

The thing is you see, (she says shoving another 4 in for good measure…) In precisely one hour my telephone is going to ring and I am going to have to pick it up and speak to a jolly American.

Now usually this wouldn’t be a bad thing, given that I love the American’s as much as I do… Actually, did I ever tell you the story about what happens whenever I get drunk?

Basically it goes like this- whenever I get drunk, I fake an American accent and tell everyone in hearing distance I am not from Eccles Manchester, but actually from Utah.

I have no idea why I pick Utah, I just always do, it seems to just roll easily of my drunken tongue, plus it sounds cool. I can picture myself being a cheerleader in Utah, or a rocker or something. Utttaaaahhhhh…. It’s just easy to ‘drawwwwl’ in an American accent.

Do you know what isn’t easy to say in an American accent? (while we are on the subject?)

‘Sugar puffs.’ Don’t ever try and say ‘Sugar puffs’ in an American accent, as you will blow your cover. Even Americans can’t say sugar puffs in an American accent.

Try it if you don’t believe me.

See? You sound like you need help don’t you?

But anyway, back to the point, usually a chat with a real life genuine American would ensure I would be counting down the moments until the shrieking and ‘Howdy and grits!’ and ‘y’all have a nice day’ began.

I LOVE THE AMERICANS.

I should have been American in my opinion.

I was simply born to say things like ‘Freeedommmm!’ and ‘Hey y’all, watch out for those ERBS on the SIDEWALK!’

But oh no, not today, today I am suffering with the regular old British anxiety.

Michelle is the American ringing me today, you see.

And not only is she American, she is Disney American.

Which means I am doubly in awe (and doubly jealous of her heritage and job) and therefore am unable to act like a normal person.

Michelle is my sugar sweet wedding coordinator (the wedding comes with one, it’s like they knew that if they didn’t organise it and plan it for me – it would be a disaster) and due to my immense nerves, excitement and an underlying need to be accepted by her as cool, for some reason, whenever we speak I turn in to a robot.

A robot stuck on ‘demo mode English accents.’

It’s almost as if her sweetness is my kryptonite.

As soon as I hear her friendly, Disneyfied and incredibly well-trained voice saying just the right thing at the right time, I immediately turn in to one of the street urchins from Oliver Twist.

My English accent becomes so prominent I either sounds like I am sucking on a plum or it randomly and without warning violently swing’s in to cockney gangster and I start throwing in words like ‘apples and pears’ and ‘Guvnor.’

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!

I need this woman to like me; I need this woman to get me!

She is organizing my wedding for me for goodness sake!

My nerves have ruined every conversation we have ever had so far, and I am pretty sure she is regretting the day she accepted me as a client!

I don’t think she understood why me telling her I was in a mental institute was so important but it was, in my head.

I was trying to bond.

And also I felt the need to explain why I have chosen ‘The Mad Hatter’ theme and why absolute mentalness on the day is essential, to make me feel at home.

‘Being crazy means a lot to me you see madam. I was sectioned once in a loony bin, a crazy house if you will! So I totally get the Mad Hatter and how misunderstood he is init.’

‘So what wedding colours are you going for?’ She asked me in the awkward silence following my admission.

‘Black, white and neon pink please darling.’ I said, adding the darling inadvertently, and ending up sounding like Edwina from Absolutely Fabulous. ‘I am not uptight or an idiot you know,’ I felt the need to clarify ‘I just speak like this when I get a bit squiffy.’

(SQUIFFY? I meant nervous!!!)

‘Huh?’ She smiled down the phone, in the way that only Disney employees can, smiling down the phone while signaling to her Disney colleague she has a weirdo on the line, no doubt.

‘Nothing alreeet ’I barked in a random Geordie accent while holding my head in my hands and despairing.

Utterly farcical.

Soon after this, we decided (I say we, but it was blatantly her who decided) it would probably best if she rang me back at a more ‘appropriate’ time to get down to the nitty gritty.

(I want some gas and air!)

It seems now is a more appropriate time.

In precisely one hour my wedding coordinator is ringing me for the nittiest of the gritty and I have no idea what I am going to say.

She is going to ask me my choice of song for walking down the aisle.

It is an important conversation!!

The Irish one has chosen his song.

He is walking down the aisle to, are you ready for this?

Eye of the Tiger.

He thinks this is hilariously original but when I told Michelle I am sure she groaned, but then tried to disguise it with a Disney like cough.

But he is adamant.

He says after all I have put him through, this is his victory dance.

He is limbering up for the rest of his life with me, like Rocky would.

The grandparents, kids and bridesmaids are coming down the aisle to Beauty and the beast, Tale as old as time.

That’s the romantic bit. (I really wish my bridesmaids would consider dressing up as the candlestick, the clock and the teapot – but alas, they won’t.)

And then it’s my turn, and here is my dilemma.

I want it to be a surprise, I want to enjoy the moment and I want to remember it forever!

But mostly I want it to be me.

A bit mad, a bit sad, a bit romantic, a bit idiotic but mostly, completely unexpected and random.

But so far my list just feels a bit crap!

None of my favourite songs seem to fit!

Hand on your heart (Kylie Minogue) – because it is brilliantly 80’s and I could do the headshake as the door opened and totally work it. And also it’s a great tune, you know it is. I could wear leggings under my dress!

I kissed a girl and I liked it (Katy Perry) Just cos I think it’ll be hilarious and also I always secretly dreamed of my own music video, and also it will be dramatic and unheard of. And lets face it, nobody would ever have expected it! And they will all be like ‘DID SHE? Did she kiss a girl???’

The sweetest thing (U2) – The lyrics are a bit depressing though, and this is the one-day I want no depression, not one ounce of it! Plus I am not a brown -eyed girl. I have blue eyes, and well… I just don’t know, is it not a bit cheesy? A bit plinky plonky?

Mama do the hump. You know the one! Mama do the hump, mama mama do the hump! Mama do the hump hump! My dad and I could totally jive, catwalk and prance down the long aisle – It’s inspired! We could do a few turns! It’s not very romantic though. Plus mama doesn’t do the hump anymore. Not really.

Resurrection. – Because I love Ian brown.

Please Don’t Leave Me – (Pink) Because I don’t want him to leave me, basically.

Sex on fire – it isn’t, but you know, it used to be, before we had the kid, and my body was ripped in two and the nights got shorter and we got SKY TV. The sex used to be on fire. SO maybe we could re-ignite the flame!! Saying that though I don’t fancy walking down the aisle next to my dad while the kings of Leon moan and groan and The Irish one looks at me like I’ve lost my mind…. again.

And then there is all the music we love and listen to together.

Walking in Memphis has a great opening, Arizona by kings of Leon I adore, but then what about ABC by the Jackson five? That is Addison’s favourite tune! Ignition by R kelly! On a ragga tip by SL2! or Paradise by Coldplay. Or the Romeo and Juliet fish tank song!

Or I know! I know! What about The Peppa Pig theme tune! It’s what we listen to the most!

I just don’t know!

I need to pick something more romantic don’t I?

The very thought of that makes me incredibly uncomfortable!!

I may just have to turn my phone off for a little while and get one of the bridesmaids to pretend to be me so she thinks I am normal. Let her pick.

I need to take my medication.

I need Michelle to like me.

I need a drink!

I need to pick a darn song y’all!

I need to be from UTAHHHHHHH.

Help!

Oo Oo!

Or what about ‘They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no…. ‘ (Or is that just too darn obvious?)

Bat Shit Crazy.

I must live in the moment.

I don’t want to go back in hospital.

I just can’t.

I must live in the moment.

I must take deep breaths.

Think rational thoughts.

I must not freak out.

What can I hear if I close my eyes and take deep breaths?

Yes everything is ok.

I can hear the sound of Doodle licking his bollocks romantically in his bed next to me.

Over my ragged breath, I can also hear the clinky clanky tinkering of the Irish one fixing his bike in the kitchen (as you do) while muttering expletives under his breath and faintly, if I focus, I can hear my Barmy and adored, sweet smelling boy snoring, mouth wide open, in his bed.

All is as it should be.

Deep breaths.

Do not freak out.

It will not happen.

Don’t freak out don’t freak out don’t freak out.

I do not want to end up back in hospital.

It reared its violent head again on New Years Eve.

I went for a lie down at 8pm ‘to rest my eyes for five minutes’ after loving every moment of snuggling with Addison,  after telling stories of tractors who could talk and dogs who could fly.

I lay down peacefully, promising to rest for only five minutes.

What must have been hours later I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed, my heart hammering and dripping with hot tears and sweat.

I could hear gunshots.

‘Irish one!’ I screamed in to the darkness after reaching out to grab him and with a huge sense of dread realising he wasn’t there. ‘Oh my god, Irish one! Where are you?’

He burst through the bedroom door like a shocked and pajamad warrior.

‘Whats the matter?’ He shouted racing towards the bed in what I thought was panic and worry for me. (Turns out I was screaming like I was being stabbed and he was worried the neighbors may think he was bludgeoning me.) ‘Stop screaming!’

‘Are we at war?’  I whispered clutching his shoulder and grabbing the PlayStation remote from him in case I needed to brandish it as a weapon later on.

‘No you medicated idiot,’ he laughed, enveloping me in a hug and rocking me back and forth like you may do a child ‘it is midnight. It is fireworks you can hear. Happy New Year. Go back to sleep.’

As my heart began to slow , I kissed him, handed him back his remote and rolled over.

I was intending to go back to sleep grumbling about how If the fireworks woke the kid up, i’d go mad.

But I couldn’t sleep.

I knew it was back.

I felt as if I had invited it back.

Immediately I was disappointed in myself and anxious.

Don’t freak out.

Don’t freak out.

Something had crept in to bed behind me, and was now spooning with me, breathing its hot breath on to my neck, making all of my hair stand on end.

Psychosis.

Go away.

Please go away.

A feeling of dread so worrying, I am now, a week later, still struggling to function.

Calm down.

You are ok.

The world didn’t end.

I am getting married this year.

Nothing is like what it was.

It isn’t back.

You are imagining it.

Doodle is slowly starting to realise 5 years after emerging from his doggy mothers womb that outside is where he must poo and the rocky start I had at motherhood myself, is just starting to feel lovely, like deep down in my bones, awe inspiring, heart rupturing lovely.

Everything is ok.

Deep breaths.

It is only a new year.

Don’t freak out.

But no, I know it is there waiting for me, seeping in at my edges, the darkness, the paranoia, I can feel it, no matter how much I argue with myself.

It is there.

Has the Irish one spiked my tea?

He repeatedly denies it, his brow furrowing with worry and of course, then I laugh.

Set his mind at rest.

Before surreptitiously creeping in to the kitchen and pouring it down the sink.

I will make a new cup of tea, and I will keep my eyes on it.

He may be trying to spike me.

You never know.

Ok.

I think we have a problem.

Do those girls hate me really? Will they follow me back to my car and throw bricks at me?  Are they plotting to follow me home? Do they call me fat and see evil in me?

Are they planning to steal my baby? I must tell them I made my baby up. I must pretend he doesn’t exist.

No harm can come to my baby.

Ok.

I think we may have a problem.

And then I am lost.

The deep breathing hasn’t helped.

I know with certainty right now it will happen.

The moment I dread.

The moment I am pulled roughly from the serene moment I am resting my lips peacefully on my son’s forehead, or inhaling his sweet playful childishness as he smacks his lips together in his sleep, and everything will just… disappear.

I will blink myself from this life and find myself in a stark white room 30 years from now stinking to high heaven of hospitals and bleach, tethered to a bed with an old man leaning over me, his teeth yellowing and his complexion pale, begging me to come home and get better.

I will recognise nobody.

I won’t know what happened.

I was putting my son to bed and I blinked.

The old man will be the Irish one but of course, I wont recognise him, having only seen him three minutes before when he was swearing in the kitchen and leaving greasy oil prints everywhere.

Now.

I mean… just then!

What happened?

I want to go back.

‘Lexy,’ he will tenderly whisper in my ear, his salty old coffee breath gushing over my senses, ‘I am your husband we have been married 30 years today, Addison is  here to see you,  can you remember him? Are you lucid?’

‘You don’t like coffee’ I will whisper confused, ‘you can’t be him’ my eyes wide with fear, my heart exploding with every beat from my chest.

‘Mike wazaouski’ he will whisper our private joke playfully in my ear, and I will instantly know it is him and I will turn to ice.

‘Mum.’ I will hear his voice before I see him and I will sense his tears, his heartbreak at how his mother went Bat shit crazy  ‘Mum, it’s me, Addison. Are you lucid?’

I will turn slowly, my head a dead weight filled with fear and disbelief and I will look at the grown up man stood at the end of my bed.

My heart will catch in my throat.

Don’t freak out.

I missed it all.

I missed him growing up.

I missed it all.

No.

‘No!’ I will want to scream long and hard.

‘Mum’ he will whisper, his little lopsided smile and cracked baby teeth, long gone, his baby blue eyes once filled with vulnerability now replaced by life experience I haven’t witnessed, a life with his mother trapped in another world. A life where his mother abandoned him.

And I will howl in desperation, where is my son, where has his smell gone, his little play doh and yoghurt stained pyjamas? Where are our moments?

The man at the end of the bed cannot be my son, he just can’t, my son is 2 years old.

And I will black out.

Ok. 

I think we may have a problem. 

Don’t freak out.

Everything is ok.

Addison is asleep in his bed.

Concentrate on the now.

But will now be the moment it happens?

That my years will be violently stolen?

I am still in bed.

I can hear Doodle farting.

Concentrate on the now.

It is all ok.

The Irish one has come in.

He is shouting at me to calm down.

He sounds worried.

I must be freaking out.

I am trapped in my imaginary world.

Heart racing, panicked, mouth dry, the room swinging in and out of focus.

I must live in the moment.

I must not forget to take my medication.

I must not freak out.

I must not get too upset and angry when I hear people off handedly label others, with mental health issues, funny names.

They simply do not understand that this is an illness.

I must live in the moment.

A panic attack will only ever be a panic attack.

I am going to go and hug my baby.

I am bat shit crazy.

But you know?

I will get through it.

Happy New Year!

Fortune Teller. (Don’t grow up yet.)

Dear Teenage Me,

Please listen.

I may be able to help you…

Your stepmother isn’t evil so stop writing in your diary that you hate her and just wish she would die.

You don’t.

But you are right she has got crap hair, but bless her, it’s the 90’s and to be honest your hair could use some work too.

In about 20 years, something called GHD’s will be invented and you will be transformed, so until then, tie it up and find a better hiding place for your diary BECAUSE SHE IS READING IT!

(Which is why your dinner is always the burnt one and why she never sticks up for you!!! Can you blame her? You are wishing her dead for crap hair?? A little dramatic don’t you think?)

Actually, once you have hidden your diary, pull on your new and funky in line skates, go to the bookshop if you can make it that far without breaking an elbow, and look up how to make hand held iron’s for frizzy arse hair, then stop wasting your time playing on the Super Nintendo and spend your time inventing them.

Believe me when I say, you will make a fortune and be revered as the frizzy haired wonder who invented Good Hair Days.

Jennifer Anniston will love you.

She’s the one you fancy out of that new show ‘friends’.

While we are on the subject of your hair? Erm… purple? Really?

Also, pay more attention in school, it may be funny now to try and Bunsen burn your boobs but seriously in a few years you’ll wish you payed more attention to what you were actually being taught.

Specifically when you get a U in biology at IGCSE and get kicked out of school.

Also, when you use a pipette to squirt water at Laura’s head, remember to make sure it isn’t boiling water. Poor Laura. It really isn’t funny what you put that girl through.

Actually, while we are on the subject of school, in 1996 there will be a cheese and wine night to introduce you to your new six form college, do NOT go behind the bike sheds with Hubert. He isn’t cool and neither is his name, also Mrs. Almeida will catch him fingering you. This will not go down well with your dad and even when you are 30 you will cringe at the memory. Nobody likes to remember being caught, getting fingered. Seriously. Getting fingered is not cool. 

Do not let Laura drive your moped 2 days after you buy it, she will crash it and while you are weeping she will be trying to find what is left of her ankle. Neither of you will see the light of day for at least 2 years.

Being grounded is not fun, and yes her ankle is more important than your bike. GO HELP YOUR BEST FRIEND PUT HER ANKLE BACK TOGETHER!

Do not drive up a one way street by accident on the day you are finally let free and then in a panic at possibly being grounded again, try and win a high speed chase with the Guardia civil.

You are on a clapped out moped, they are in a 4 by 4. It is the most pathetic short lived high speed chase ever, even if you did feel like Penelope pitstop at the time, You will inevitably get grounded again.

Nobody likes to see their daughter in handcuffs.

Do not leave Spain, ever.

EVER.

You think you want to live in England but all that awaits you there, is misery and a life of falling in to drugs, and friends who manage to let you down at the very time you need them the most.

Call your brother and tell him you love him everyday.

Do not drunkenly stumble in to your mum’s bedroom at 2 in the morning after a night out with a ‘new lady friend’ and announce very loudly to her sleeping head, that you think you might be a ‘Lezzy Lesbian.’

There are ways to potentially come out of the closet, and this isn’t one of them.

Make your mind up about which way you swing by yourself, then do what most people do if they decide to be gay and send your parents a letter explaining things, before boarding a plane to Guatemala for a good while.

Then at least, if you decide you are straight, it will be because you chose to be, not because you weren’t allowed to be anything else but.

Also Lezzy Lesbian?…Really??

Forgive yourself everyday and eat more cheese while you can, you have an amazing body right now.

When you are 19 you will move to America.

STAY AWAY from Matt Marioux.

He will break your heart in to a hundred thousand pieces and it will take you years to recover, meanwhile, he will barely remember your name.

Also don’t get drunk and try and park Peter’s car.

Yes.

It was your fault that it ended up in the Lake.

AND NO.

It isn’t funny.

A car in a lake is no laughing matter Lexy Ellis!

You could have drowned.

Sigh.

When you go on the Disney cruise do not have a strop about how fat you are and refuse to leave the room the entire trip.

You are not fat, go and pick up a prescription for some anti-depressants and eat more cheese.

Never walk backwards on a raised train platform to get the attention of a hot boy. You will make a total cock of yourself and having pins in your arms?

Not fun.

Or attractive.

Just ask Laura, poor Laura, her ankle never recovered.

Call your brother. Chat to him and tell him you love him. Do it now. Tell him if he is sad and depressed he can get help. Tell him you understand. Tell him he is loved and you will always be there for him. Tell him he isn’t alone. Tell him you need him and not to die. Tell him never to die, because you need him. Tell him not to die. Tell him you are his little sister and you can’t live, you wont know how to live without a big brother. Remind him of all your memories. Remind him how you rode on his shoulders, remind him you can’t live without him. Beg him not to die. Never let him go. Tell him you need him.

Don’t stay in and cry because nobody loves you, go out and dance because there is nothing to be ashamed of in loving yourself.

Always wear knickers, especially when meeting the mother of your new boyfriend. Just take my word on that. Seriously.

Enjoy your life, young one, and I’ll see you when you are 32!

Oh and Lexy? One last thing…

What he is doing to you isn’t right.

You are still a child.

Tell somebody. Tell anybody.

Tell your brother. Tell your dad.

You may think you can make him stop, but you don’t have that power little one.

It isn’t your fault.

(Also he better god damn hope he never comes in to contact with the 32 year old you, because she will stamp on his face, hard, before ripping out his heart and squashing it up in to his face, while kicking his balls out of his back passage.)

Forgive yourself as you grow up.

But don’t be in a rush to grow up either, one day you will know that ‘Immature’ is just a word old people use to describe fun people. (Kind of…)

Much Love, Lexy.

Be yourself.

Me x

Ps- Accept an epidural earlier. Believe me, you’ll thank me the first time you sneeze.

Scars.

‘My foundation was rocked. My tried and true way to deal was to vanish, my departures were old, I stood in the room, shaking in my boots. At that particular time, love had challenged me to stay.’ – Alanis Morissette.  

I woke up in my single bed on that afternoon, stretching and yawning, feeling entitled to my extended and indulgent morning of sleep like only a teenager could.

It was only as I turned over and the knife-edge soared through my right arm with such ferocity it robbed me of my breath, that I was reminded of the night previous.

The first genuine smile I had expressed in a number of months lit up my heart, I was relieved.

I felt alive.

The throbbing damage done, radiating outwards like the only ripple in a stagnant and forgotten millpond.

There is no beauty here.

In agony I now trusted.

A belief.

It couldn’t let me down.

It would never leave.

A blanket of pain wrapping around me like a hug, waking me up, wiping away my tears, consoling my cracked heart, listening to my fears, supporting my askew beliefs and allowing me to indulge in my sweet new friend, self-punishment.

The glint of the knife skims my skin again and I see my determined and gritty eyes looking back up at me from it’s tilted reflection.

It is a relief when the corrugated edge stops jiggling, jumping and bouncing over my skin as if in protest, and does the job it was made to do.

Harder, much harder.

Again and again, with grim resolve I drag it over my arms.

My mind clears with heavenly nothingness as the blood pops up in joyous celebration at being freed, ready to caress, soothe and mollify my anger.

The sweet release of tangible pain.

The feel of it gifting me with the same sort of relief,  you may feel when you remove your biting bra at the end of a long day.

The high is like cocaine. (So I hear) but all too soon it is replaced with a crushing shame.

A shame that disables me.

I hurt myself to remove the hurt.

I hurt myself as punishment for the choices I have made, that I can’t go back and change.

I hurt myself because the pain takes away my past, and that is worth it, even if it is only for a few moments.

I do not hurt myself for attention.

I hurt myself because I deserve to be hurt.

A faceless stranger sits in front of me, shaking with anger, her eyes filled with confusion and hurt, wet with the tears waiting in the wings.

‘She is a bloody attention seeker, my little girl. She was my baby only yesterday, running around in a nappy and oh how I adored her; we would play the days away, my best friend.’ She pauses with a ragged breath.

I stare at the floor, immobilised.

‘It is like she has been kidnapped. She cuts and she cuts… I just want my little girl back, but right now I hate her. I hate her.’

Her hair has a grey tinge and the light from the window behind her casts a shadow on me, plunging me back in to the dark.

She lifts her hands to her face in a jerky and surprised motion and sobs.

‘I don’t hate her. I just can’t save her. She wont let me save her. But save her from what? She has a great life!’

She stamps her foot, removes her hands from her face, brutally wipes her escaped tears away and fixes on to her face, a resigned and steely glare.

I carry this woman with me a lot.

She has become a part of my life.

She sits on the mantelpiece of my misery, her legs swinging off and her smile hopeful as I try to leave the house without her.

If she were a dog, her tail would be wagging.

Can I join you today Lexy? Can I? Can I? Can I?

Like I have a choice.

She usually jumps in for the kill, just after I have grabbed my overpriced handbag that I bought trying to fill the void in me, my happy pills, and all manner of crap my two year old, still in nappies, is insistent he ‘needs’ for a day at his cousins. (Like a bucket of stones, the top of a pink plastic shark, it’s bottom discarded in the slush pile of toys, 8 dummies but not the red one, one truck with a wheel missing and his Mr. Happy fork.)

I have named this woman.

She is called Madame. Guilt.

And you’ll be pleased to know she has friends too, so she doesn’t get lonely.

They are unsurprisingly named Senor. Regret and Ms. Victoria You cant change the Past so stop trying you twat, you are a Failure and only have yourself to Blame.

They weigh my baggage down.

Usually I find them unexpectedly, while I am busy searching for the red dummy my son is insistent he brought with him, and will simply be heartbroken if he doesn’t get immediately.

I find them slotted in beside my fear of being a failure as a mother, my anxiety that somehow I will accidentally kill my son with undercooked sausages, and the yellow file marked ‘stuff you will remember you have forgotten, but only when you get to the car park outside your location, and your son vomits all over you. Stuff like wipes, money for petrol, your passport and your ability to function without tearing your hair out…’

They surely are an addictive bunch reaching their arms out in focused and determined desperation towards me, from in between the hopeful and happy days, intent on getting a handful, and when they do,  pulling and stretching me until I tear.

I am a self-harmer.

They visit me in the dead of night, waking me up and covering me in sweat, screaming to be heard even when I have my face pressed in to my pillow begging for them to go away and let me sleep.

Let me look to the future.

And when I cant silence them?

When I can take no more?

I creep barefoot like a child on Christmas eve, full of excitement and anticipation to find out whether father Christmas has been yet, to the kitchen draw, to unwrap my present of silence, or sometimes, if I don’t feel I deserve the honeyed relief of blood, I tip toe to the hair straighteners, where I will patiently await the double beep, heart pounding.

And then I will burn. And burn. And burn.

You bastard.

This is the only love you deserve.

This is love.

Feel this pain.

Feel the momentary relief.

And I relish it.

I am a self-harmer.

It has been 4 months since I last self harmed.

My longest abstinence yet, since the tender age of 14,  and onwards, without indulging, I trudge.

I am writing instead.

I am fighting.

It isn’t a walk in the park.

I am a self-harmer.

My scars tell my story.

And there she is, swinging her dangling legs, off my mantelpiece.

‘At that particular time love encouraged me to leave, at that particular moment, I knew that staying with you meant deserting me, that particular month was harder than you would believe, but I still left, at that particular time.’ – Alanis Morissette.

It is an Illness, and I am not ashamed. 

Stop being a Dick and grow the Hell up!!!

Yesterday in a moment of overwhelming panic, my trembling and fat little nibbled fingers positively shot out a text at the speed of light (if the speed of light travelled at say, the same speed over a keyboard, as overcooked sausages playing an Elton John tune on a pretend piano) to my best friend.

It was all coming back to me.

Slowly, as most things do come back to me since I started this new medication, but, coming back to me nonetheless.

I had really upset her.

I had god damn insulted her in her hour of need.

What kind of person does that? How could I behave like that?

Oh my god what kind of horrible person was I?

Addison’s head was pressed firmly up against mine, he was desperate to get my attention, as I finished typing out the message and hesitantly placed my phone on the sofa next to me, never taking my eyes off it for a second, waiting anxiously for a reply.

When head butting me didn’t have the desired effect, my son then started to insert rolled up pieces of ham up my left nostril.

But not even the smell of pig and two year old nail dirt could distract me from the gut wrenching panic I was experiencing.

I was sitting perfectly still, with a nose full of sliced pig brushing sensuously against my top lip, the whole time trying to jump-start my mind.

What was it I had said!! If only I could remember!

As the cogs started turning and Addison gave up on me and went to annoy Doodle I began desperately searching through my memory banks like a mad woman late for work, searching for a top she needed to wear and coming up empty handed. I was angrily wrenching memories out one by one in frustrated silence. I was holding a tangled and creased recollection up to the light and glancing at it for a couple of seconds, before with a frustrated tut, realising once again it wasn’t the one I was looking for and angrily discarding it on to the pile behind me.

What the hell was wrong with me?

It was no use, I couldn’t find it, I know the memory was god damn in there, but I just couldn’t find it.

I had upset her. I was a total cow, and I couldn’t even remember how. (Rhyming totally accidental, I rhyme only when nervous.)

I must have been drunk, or on medication at the time.

It is the only explanation for my loss of memory.

These meds are horrific.

Only last week, The Irish one had informed me that approximately 45 minutes after I took my anti-psychotic tablet and informed him I was going to sleep, he had found me in the bedroom, after hearing me making some funny noises, trying to pull up the carpet, as I was convinced (apparently) that there was a squirrel trapped underneath it. (I was making Squirrel noises!!!)

I have no recollection of this and blame Doodle entirely, that poodle is taunting me pretending to be a squirrel I just know it. It’s his dastardly plan and one-day ill catch him at it. You just wait. With nuts!

I put my head in my hands to concentrate again on memory tracing, and noticed my legs were ever so slightly trembling as Addison, now bored of Doodle, mounted my back and demanded I get on to the floor so he could ride me like a pony.

Damn it, if only I could remember what I had done.

‘Addison,’ I said distractedly, doing as I was told and sinking to my hands and knees, singing clipity clop and neighing in my best horsey accent ‘hold on properly to mummy’s hair. My hanging back fat is not a handle’ ‘

After five minutes of trotting (imagine if you will an elephant trotting) on my hands and knees being extremely careful to navigate in between the cast and crew of Thomas the tank engine who had been discarded earlier on to the laminate floor when Misty island blew up (totally not my fault) I checked my phone again and farted (It was the nerves!)

No response.

I ran in to the kitchen, plugged Addison in to an ice pop, turned on the telly and frantically began re-checking what I had sent.

Oh my god why hadn’t she replied?

‘Oh my god babes, I’m so so so so so so sorry if I upset you. I really am. I am so sorry, it’s these meds… its no excuse though, I’m so sorry.’

Was that nice enough?

What the hell did I do?

It must have been really bad.

She had every right to be extraordinarily angry and cross with me, she had always been there for me, and I had obviously let her down big time.

I checked my phone every 12 seconds for a reply while explaining to Addison why he wasn’t allowed to watch Football. (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!)

When 15 minutes of watching football with my 2 year old (pick your battles) had elapsed with no response I could wait no longer and text her again, breaking out in to a cold sweat

‘I am so sorry if I have upset you. I am trying to remember but it’s so vague. It is honestly the meds this is not an excuse. It wasn’t my intention to be a dick, but I know you are mad, I am so sorry!’

By the time the Irish one got home from work half an hour later, I still had had no reply and I was manic.

‘Irish One!’ I pounced on him as he walked through the door, ‘ we need to move back to Spain. I have upset Gertrude* She is so mad at me! We need to move because if she is angry with me I won’t be able to cope and certainly won’t be able to live in the same country as her! I’ll never be able to face her again, ever! I feel terrible! I want to dig a big hole and bury myself in it forever!’

He detangled my hands from his face and tried to look around me for his son.

‘Why what has happened?’

‘I don’t know!’ I shrieked ‘I can’t remember!’

He put his bag down on the sofa, located his son and greeted Addison with a funny look.

‘Why is my son covered in feathers?’

He didn’t seem to be grasping the severity of my situation.

‘He is fine! He was playing in a pillow with Doodle. What am I going to do about Gertrude??’

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine, what do you mean playing in a pillow? How do you know she is even mad at you if you can’t remember what you have done? Is that ham up your nose?’ He looked a bit lost for words. (Never stops talking though.)

I was about to tell him the whole sordid tale when my phone beeped signaling a highly awaited for response.

I jumped on it like a cat on a bag of catnip, all four legs landing on it at the same time. (Imagine my hands are legs and my back was arched and I was hissing and my hair was flying out behind me.)

‘OH MY GOD LEXY! NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!!! It wasn’t about you you idiot!!’ It read. ‘Just some girl I work with. She’s is doing my head in with her pettiness! Why would you even think it was about you? I would never say that to you, you utter moron.’

‘THANK GOD!”’ I sent back “love you,’

And with that I pulled the ham out of my nose, popped it in my mouth and normal service resumed.

There is nothing I hate more, than a Passive Aggressive Generalised Facebook status.

*My best friends name isn’t Gertrude. It’s Maurice.

*‘Anna, I know we haven’t spoken to each other in 12 years but do you think I am the ‘fucking cretin’ who stole your car? Cos just in case that status was aimed at me, honestly it wasn’t. I already have a car. Honest. Much love. Hope you find your car soon. Hugs x Lexy xxx’ 

I Should Never have Gotten out of the Car. (Booo!)

“Is there any such thing as a healthy relationship?’

His curious and caring eyes are not robust enough to penetrate my armor today, no matter how much I hunger for them to be.

No matter how desperately I crave for them to be.

The setting of my therapy has changed.

I pull up on the gravel pathway nowadays, usually in the rain, open the car door, letting my feet fall on to the stones outside and I sit for a while, staring up at the old Victorian building that time has ravaged.

There is no doubt in my mind that this building used to be majestic, stunning and warm, but what time has left behind can only kindly be described as an ugly shit hole.

I wonder if time ever has to answer for all the hurt it causes?

It takes me a little longer to find the courage to enter therapy these days without the backdrop of the hospital guiding me in, and without the security of anyone knowing where I am.

It takes me a little longer to trust.

Sometimes, as I sit on the eccentric purple sofa in this new room, trying and failing to find a restful position, that gives both the impression I am supported yet uncomfortable, facing James, I vividly imagine releasing bucket after bucket of tears and pain, with slow methodical like actions on to the thick cream carpet, that swallows my feet, between us.

I imagine, almost dream like, not being able to stop as the gushing of the pain and the tears soaks the space between us and the carpet becomes so sodden that it can no longer hold anymore and like the giving of a dam, I then imagine that we each begin to float away from each other in the tide, him in his comfy one seater with his new converse on with the labels turned down, and me, barefoot on my lonely three seater.

And then once again I can be alone, and will be able to escape his annoying questions, questions that I do not want to answer just yet, thank you very much.

I imagine calling out ‘WILSONNNNNN!’ like Tom hanks does in Castaway, except it won’t be a baseball that is floating away sadly, it will be a bottle of wine that I have drawn a smiley face on. A smiley face that looks exactly like my therapist.

‘WILSONNNNN!!!!!!’ I daydream, wishing the hour was up but knowing it has just begun, ‘if only you were here!!!’

Because I honestly do think, my therapist and I would get on a hell of a lot better over a glass of wine, or maybe a bottle.

I would definitely be more honest that is for damn sure.

I rest my head on the hard sofa arm and toy with the idea of picking up my coat and throwing it over my head.

I do this sometimes when he makes me feel uncomfortable and it makes things easier to handle.

Sure, I must look like an idiot, but hey, I am paying him £40 an hour so if I want to act like a lunatic I bloody will.

One day I may even pretend to be a ghost just to see what he does.

‘Oooo James, BOOOOOOO!’

Not today though. Instead I look up at the gilded angels carved in to the horrifically decorated ‘dildo’ rail scaling the four corners of the old Victorian ceiling, and I sigh.

I want to be able to say no, that I don’t believe there is any such thing as a healthy or happy relationship but I am too frightened, because I don’t know if I believe that answer to be true deep down and I also know this will inevitably lead to more questions, that I really don’t want to answer.

‘Well?’ he asks again as I studiously try to ignore the little black box sat to the left of my head, recording every word I say probably for when he needs therapy to get over my therapy, and try not to think about wine.

I didn’t want to talk about relationships today.

I wanted to come in to this room and bury myself beneath the Latin scrolled cushions, curl up and have him tell me I would be ok.

I wanted him to tell me that it wasn’t me who was bad in relationships, but everyone else, and that telling the Irish one he was a Loser and a Bastard and deserved to die for forgetting the milk was understandable. That he was a bastard as milk is vital. I wanted him to confirm to me that nobody liked me, that people hurt me on purpose.

I wanted him to tell me that I was right, everybody left in the end, or died, or betrayed you, and I was right to trust nobody and pushing people away was the only sensible thing to do.

I wanted to be understood, but instead, I found myself irritated by a question, at the root of it, I was unable to answer.

Because at the root of it, I know it is I, who is unhealthy, who is unhappy and who is unable to forgive herself.

I wouldn’t choose to live in my brain if the choice were ever offered, I wouldn’t choose to have to drive over the 60 foot bridge that 7 years ago my brother collapsed off, twisting and hurtling in the dead of night, all alone, in to the icy waters below, so exhausted by living in his brain that this terrifying action seemed an easier thing to do than live, and I wouldn’t choose depression.

Every day I cross that bridge in my car and I hear his fear.

I am not normal, we are not normal, I am evil, we are evil.

I sense his pain.

I hear his core beliefs echoed in my own.

I touch the back of my head and I shiver as the water fills my ears and the ice stings my lungs.

Some days I cross with my foot down and I block it out with medication, with singing, with hopes and dreams of a life I one day hope to live.

A life where my core beliefs don’t tell me I deserve nothing.

Some days I feel free, I feel loved and supported.

Others,

Like today, I don’t realise I am sobbing until I feel my neck wet and my soul drain.

Another bucket of pain that wont seem to empty, no matter how hard I god damn try.

Some days I wish I could just drift away.

I can’t answer his question today, so instead I ignore it and do the only sensible thing left to do.

I pick a fight with him instead.

‘Four days respite I got on holiday. Four fucking days of being at peace. I wasn’t happy, although god knows how much I tried to be, I was at peace, only four days that’s it, out of Fourteen! Four days that the illness granted me a respite, a peace treaty. AND THIS ILLNESS IS SEEN AS A CHOICE? Is this how it is going to be for the rest of my fucking life? Fighting with myself? Blaming myself? Feeling selfish and not being able to explain why I am the way I am? Feeling the disappointment deep in my heart, the disappointment I see in etched in to my loved ones eyes when they see it is back? Not being able to pretend? Feeling hopeless?  Feeling like a god damn failure? When will therapy start to help? I hate therapy and I hate you.’

He smiles from beneath his slow shock.

‘There is no such thing as therapy Lexy.’ He states clearly. ‘What we have is a relationship, and I can hear you.’

When the feeling of wanting to strangle him passes and I am once again safely ensconced back in the car on the way home, it hits me what he has said.

He is always there for me.

I talk to him.

He listens.

I cry to him.

He cares.

I ask for help.

He helps.

I tell him how evil I feel.

He doesn’t judge.

He gets to the root of me.

He pisses me off.

He sets boundaries and he offers me advice.

I feel uncomfortable, but maybe there is such a thing as a healthy and happy relationship.

Maybe he is teaching me they do exist, maybe he is showing me I have more than one in my life, even if I do think I am evil and don’t deserve anyone.

I owe him a lot.

My THERAPIST who gives me THERAPY.

How in the hell can therapy not exist???

God he is so annoying.

‘WILLLSOOOOONNNNN!!!!!’ *Slurps wine.*

Postnatal Depression. (The Boomerang Effect.)

It has been 2 years to the day.

Years which have flown by like an airborne crisp packet sailing turbulently past the maternity hospital window.

‘Look! Prawn cocktail!’ I pointed from the delivery bed, ankles up around my ears, unable to grasp the severity of what was about to happen, as drugged up as a dancing tramp, calling The Irish One by my ex boyfriends name, thinking this was the funniest thing I had ever done, and genuinely confused by his lack of mirth. ‘No I won’t push! Get me some crisps. Look!’

2 years to the day since my son landed blue, and extremely annoyed and more than likely freezing and certainly confused, on to my empty bump in the cold, clinical delivery suite and grabbed hold of my finger in fear.

Look after me, he asked as I looked down at him in shock, the tears streaming down my face.

Protect me.

2 years to the day.

2 years of watching my son grow from a smooshy headed donut in to an inquisitive little creature that has no qualms about eating a spider.

And oh how I love him, with his head full of dreams and his belly full of hoops.

Sometimes I feel my heart could tear open and weep out the love.

Sometimes I wish love was a cure. 

2 beautiful years, the memories of which should ensure nothing but breath catching happiness, which are instead filled with silent tears and venom filled thoughts, with heartbreak and hate, with stolen kisses and watery smiles and eventually with love and quiet.

It is the quiet that I long for the most.

2 years, gone in a heartbeat, 2 years vanished like a deleted text, floating around in the ether.

It is the lost days that I crave to erase.

I yearn to rip them from the pages of my life story, to remove all evidence they ever happened, they ever existed.

The moments that I would beg to feel the love, let me feel anything, the times when the illness had eaten at my brain and I felt nothing.

A bottomless, airtight hole filled with… nothing positive.

Long spidery days splayed out in front of me like witch fingers, clutching me around the neck.

Hours filled with self hatred, wasted lost moments of self indulgent guilt and angry pointless self punishment while my son innocently played in front of me, his eyes questioning my emotionless warmth.

Numbness so acute, I could misplace a month without realisation.

An eternity in 12 hours, like a heavy suitcase filled with broken dreams being dragged behind me.

A sword through the heart that I am unable to fulfil my promise of protection, too exhausted from an invisible battle.

But I crossed the finish line, I raised my arms in the air and sailed through it, exhausted and out of breath but elated.

I made it.

I tentatively reached out

I grabbed hold of the light and I hugged it close to me unable to believe it was real.

I got cocky.

I was discharged.

I was proud.

I felt better.

I had conquered the demons.

I was living, really living, and loving.

I could play, finally I could play.

I could feel.

And then I woke up.

Now I am angry, and sad, and disappointed and panicked.

I didn’t win.

Once again I am broken.

Unable to connect.

I woke up happy, and sang Happy Birthday and from nowhere I was blind sided.

In an instant the light was extinguished.

My tears stinging like hot acid.

My fragile contentment, once again trampled on.

Doodle, my beautiful black dog, climbs on my knee and rests his head on my shattered heart.

He knows.

A car on the motorway, upside down, resting on the embankment

They know.

A dead bird, its beak smashed in, lying silently in front of a window.

It knows.

It is the quiet I long for.

I wish love was a cure.

Because the love I know is buried once again, could conquer all.

If I could just keep hold of it.

The fight goes on.

Hold On To The Crazy. The Crazy Spurs You On.

I know it is in there.

I can run at force, and lunge my shoulder in to the door. I can rattle the decaying and stained gold handle and scream, pound and shout through my tears. Let me in, goddamn it let me in.

I can sink to my threadbare knees in front of the bastard armor of thick brown wood, which blocks me from entering and claw at my face with my nails and shout please please, make it stop, just please make it stop.

I can lie down beside it, heaving sobs at midnight, beaten. The cold of the night, the slap of the concrete floor, laying claim to my wet face.

I can get up before the sun rises and plaster on my heavy smile.

A smile plastered on to a face, which is becoming more manufactured with every passing day.

I even have fake eyelashes now you know.

My own eye lashes, you see, weren’t long enough or battery enough to protect me from my own self depreciating thoughts or the preying eyes of vultures trying to catch a glimpse at the crazy woman with the cuts on her arms inside of me.

I just changed Crazy girl, to crazy woman.

Because I am no longer a girl am I.

It is a fact.

I should grow up, I should shut up, I should get a grip, I should… get Botox.

Or fillers!!!

Anyway,

I know it is fucking in there.

I just can’t get to it.

I can visualize it oh so clearly in my minds eye, I feel that if I could only grab a coat hanger, I could shove it under the door and coach it out with a gentle puff and huff, like one does a mini dinosaur.

Or car.

Or chip.

I know what it looks like.

I can almost certainly remember what it feels like, and I can all too easily reminisce about the way it would positively mold itself around me, like a python, ensuring every bone in my body would fill with a fulfilling tingle, a glow, an honest to god fantastic inner smile.

A taste of hope.

If I could just get to it, if I could just find a way.

The problem with medication, one of the problems with medication, should I say, other than the obvious ‘unusual’ side effects;

Included but not limited to,

• Excessive sweating;

Which of course causes me to smell like an old tea bag minutes after I arrive, bounding and false, in to the office gates, only to find the air conditioning ‘has gone down’ and I, of course, am wearing the skin cut from a thousand sheep, (who are all now stood shivering, cursing my name, on the moors.)

• Occasional bouts of Nausea;

Just as I walk in to a full nursery room, stinking of small children, wearing sagging and sloshy nappies and locate my child biting a beetle in half, (YES A BEETLE!) causing me to unceremoniously dump the contents of my stomach in to my new handbag on the way home, while Addy insect chomper wiggly tongue in the back, sings the theme tune to Ghostbusters. AGAIN.

• Increased sex drive;

Before I go in to how truly magnificent The Irish One is finding this particular side effect, let me move swiftly to the next one.

• A loss of orgasm;

Forget ‘it’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife’ for Irony. Alanis Morisette, take note.

My orgasm, however, is not what I have been searching furiously for. (When would I find the time, in between all the stomping around pretending to be happy? And besides that, Doodle is always staring at me, it is very off putting.)

No, what I have been searching for, is me.

My inspiration, my laughter, my hope, my happy vision for the future , the dreams I used to nurture.

My very sense of bloody me.

I know that behind that door.

That gate.

That grotty window that I have my nose pressed up against, struggling to see through the grime, lays a dusty and dampened room filled with boxes upon boxes of regrets. Crates filled with drunken memories I hurriedly discarded and sometimes even hid behind the screw pile labeled – CRINGE.

I know I will also have to bat away the numbers flying around the room, the numbers that of course never add up.

My virginity too, will be hidden somewhere in there. Ashamed and cross with me for throwing it away on the wrong man. A man with a crappy name and not my first love, the first love who I wanted to give it to but couldn’t.

I will also find my orgasm, smirking at me.

I will also no doubt find all the things I used to enjoy. Reading magazines, singing, dancing, cooking, drinking with friends, getting dressed up and going out, chatting, hugging, a good book, a film.

When did I even lose these things?

And of course, packed in there somewhere neatly, will be my ability to write without using brackets. (God damn brackets.)

Me.

Me.

I am in there somewhere.

Regrets, warts, awful memories, but also hope, and kindness, and hope, hope, hope.

I think I could fly through those boxes now, if I was just given the chance.

I am not proud of who I was, but I can be proud of who I can become… right?

Give me back my heart. Give back my mind. Give me back my fun.

I want to take back my life. I want to take back my heart, I know I can hold it together.

And that’s what matters.

If only I could get through the doors and… feel.

With medication I am alive.

But.

Numb.

Without medication,

I want to die.

But if I could just get in that room…

Then surely…

I could stay on the medication AND swallow myself whole again.

Give me back my heart. Give me back my life. I know I can hold it together.

I don’t know.

There just has to be a way in.

Doesn’t there?

Isn’t that where the light switch to the end of this tunnel is kept?

It just all feels so pointless.

I’m back on my knees.

Will somebody please bring me a Krispy Kreme?

This concrete floor is awfully cold.

What time should I expect you?

From what I hear, we don’t have to do this alone.

Forgiveness, with Extra Cheese.

He punches me in the face repeatedly.

Drawing his arm away first to muster up all his strength before balling his fist tight to ensure maximum impact, he throws himself at me again and again.

They land square in my face and I reel backwards as my head explodes with stars and my nose implodes from the force of the vicious attack.

‘Shut up.’ He says firmly. ‘Shut up.’

I don’t matter.

****

The room is cold and humid with the damp odor of a thousand tears shed.

It smells of last year. This makes me angry.

Outside, from the ledge on the roof, I spot old water hanging frozen in to stalactites that would be beautiful, I think to myself, if it wasn’t for the ingrained dirt and filth shining through the glimmering mirage. The imperfections are not what make them beautiful. If only it was clean water. 

James sits upright in his chair, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his legs crossed, his Christmas moose socks peaking out from under his trousers, providing me for the briefest of moments with an internal grin, a respite from the cesspit of hopelessness I have become buried within.

Moose socks rock. I must remember to get some for Addison. I am pretty sure Chandler had some on Friends that Janice bought him. Moose socks would make me laugh more. I could drink my coffee in them. I hope Grey’s anatomy is back on soon.

Three chairs occupy the cramped room, all of them positioned around a small round table containing a telephone, and all of them taken.

We sit like sardines, all staring at the telephone. If it rings now we will shit ourselves. It is so quiet in here.

Actually, I am not sure why there is even a telephone in here. Maybe some therapy sessions go on a bit long and they have to order food in. I wonder if Domino’s deliver to mental hospitals. I’d have a pineapple one. With extra cheese. And dough balls and…

James coughs in to his balled up fist.

I shift in my seat, uncomfortable. I want a pizza.

I know I am stalling. I also know I need to stop stalling and thinking about cheesy goodness dripping with.. STOP IT!

They are both waiting for me to speak.

I need to stop thinking about pizza. With extra cheese and possibly mushrooms. Although that could be overkill.

The woman in the chair next to mine is a friend, just to clarify. And I’m not in a police cell in the mental hospital either. I know they have one of those, which is worrying but no,  I am in an experimental therapy session.

I just need to get on with what James has asked! He asked me to speak.

The silence lasts forever. I can hear her tapping her foot next to mine. So bloody impatient.

I hunch my shoulders over and sniff, bringing my right boot on to my left knee so my fat knee is pointing at her. I play with the laces on my boots. I am sat like a man. Like the alpha male. This isn’t how I wanted to come across at all. I am vulnerable! Shit!!! But if I move back now I will look weird. This is so uncomfortable. I need to speak. I am embarrassed but I need to speak. I’m also getting cramp and I need to trump. Damn.

I move my leg back quickly and say ‘ok’ loudly, in the hope it will mask the nervousness escaping from my bum.

At least I try to say ok, but I have been silent for so long it gets caught behind a ball of flem and I end up choking instead, which definitely masks the trump that was forced out by the cough, so I am relieved at this, as I gasp for breath.

‘Ok’ I try again, after my back has been patted and I have regained my breath and taken a sip of water. Good job my trumps don’t smell.

‘You are a good person missis and I love you. You are kind. Err… you care about others. You have looked after me. You make me laugh and you make others laugh when laughter doesn’t seem possible. Err…You have pretty eyes and a huge heart. You look after your friends and know the meaning of fighting for what you want and err…You gave your last tenner to a homeless person when you needed it to get home, because you care. I admire you for that. That was kind. You never put yourself first and will go above and beyond for somebody in need. You are not a bad mother, or a bad daughter or an evil disgusting person. Err…’ I shift in my seat. ‘…You have nothing to feel guilty about. You are not going to hell. You deserve to be loved. You deserve love. You don’t have to beat yourself up for the things you are unable to do. Erm…’

I trail off and slouch unwillingly back in to the uncomfortable silence, still unable to make eye contact while saying any of that, I am now looking down and weaving my fingers through my huge red scarf, that is sitting on my knee.

I feel fragile. I do not believe the things I am saying to my friend, but I feel I have to say them. She needs me to say them. She needs to know someone is there for her. She is a good person at the root of it, but she has caused a lot of pain too. Its hard not to judge her for that.

‘Can you make eye contact with her Lexy please?’ James asks softly and I feel her look up at me for the first time too.

‘No’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry.’

They both sigh simultaneously. Once again I have failed. I feel mean.

‘Would you like to respond to Lexy?’ Jamie asks her kindly, inquisitively.

Her head shoots up and she glares, but not at me, at him. She seems angry. Aggrieved, pissed off. She is strong. She is intimidating when she is like this.

‘Not really.’ She barks pounding her fist on the arm of the chair.

‘Try.’ James implores kindly.

I take a deep breath. I am not sure I want to be here for this really. Maybe I should call a taxi. Maybe that is what the telephone is for actually. For when therapy goes wild.

‘You are wrong,’ she growls as she turns, taking a deep breath and switching her intimidating stare from him, in to the side of my head.

I’m not stupid enough to make eye contact so am now staring at the stalactites again.  But I feel it. Her fire is burning holes in my head. She scares me. I shouldn’t have come here today. I need to look after myself never mind her. I have enough going on. I want to go home for a pizza. Damn that bloody telephone.

‘So wrong.’ She continues while my leg jiggles about nervously ‘I am a bitch, I am selfish, I am wrong, and YOU’ she shouts now she is on a roll  ‘more than anybody knows that! I should be happy with what I have and I am not. I am spoilt and rotten in my core. What I have done cannot be forgiven! I took an overdose!! I chose death over you, and my child and my boyfriend and my parents, are you listening? I only think of myself!!! You may sit there and tell me you love me,’ she spits this out ‘but we both know you are only saying these things because James is making you. When we leave here today I won’t hear off you for weeks as usual and given that I am evil, I can’t say I blame you. I hate myself nearly as much as I hate you and your constant positivity telling me I actually deserve things and people and bloody love! You think by sitting in here and pretending you love me that this will all go away? I told my brother I hated him and he died. I was so selfish and I still am! I never put a wash on, on time, I am a crap mother, I can’t even cook, I bump my car constantly and I am never on time. I am lazy! LAZY AND SELFISH! I hate you and I hate myself!’

I avert my gaze from the frozen filth outside and take a deep breath as I turn to make eye contact with her for the first time.

She is beautiful and illuminated in her anger.

‘Yes.’ I whisper ‘I know you think you are all of those things but I disagree. One thing I will say though, is you are a bully. You bully me, and that needs to stop. I need you to hear that. I am fragile and you control me, but I want you to know I am here. I do deserve to be loved and I will not put up with your bullying any longer. I am going to fight back.’

Two tears roll down my cheeks as I blink.

‘Lexy’ I continue on speaking to the empty chair, the other side of me, the strong side of me, that is staring back at me angrily, in my mind. ‘You are worth it. You matter. You do a thousand things a day that prove that. You have to forgive yourself. You are still fighting. You are still here. I am fragile but I am ok.’

I am my own worst enemy and I am learning to fight her.

James leans over and pats my leg. ‘Good work today Lex, keep fighting the bully in you.  Take a few minutes and we will have a break.’

***

My eyes watering from the force of his punch I grab his hands.

I matter.

‘Addison. Mummy was telling you she loves you. We mustn’t hit, even if Special Agent Oso is saying something important, it will never be more important than mummy telling you she loves you. You are perfect and mummy will never tell you any different, but we mustn’t punch and we mustn’t be horrible. Do you understand me?’

‘Ice pop?’  He asks in return, a question sealed with an open mouthed slobbery kiss that catches more of my nose and leaves my face covered in pre- dummy gunk. Nice.

Yes son. You can have an ice pop.  You can also have my heart and you can keep that.  You are perfect and beautiful and bold and funny. But you will not hit me.

You are the reason I will keep confronting my bully and spend the time teaching you to love yourself.

You are my reason to fight.

You are perfect.

‘But throw the wrapper in the bin please and NO!! DO NOT SHARE IT WITH DOODLE!!! DOODLE IN TO BED! YOU HAVE A DODGY ENOUGH BOWEL WITHOUT SHARING ICE POPS!!’

For the love of…

I am a good mummy. The best.

It’s a start.

There is nothing wrong with who I am – that’s the goal.

I am having pizza for tea tonight. (In case you were wondering.)

What would you say to your bully?