Sunday 26 April 2009

Loneliness + Hope: thoughts.

I live in Hope.
If I didn’t, I’d be dead. I'd have topped myself a long time ago.

But some times worry rears it's head and gets the better of me. Feelings of being alone on this planet and excess worry about things such as money can really fuck with my head. But my fears are part of me which shouldn't be dismissed. But some times, I allow my thoughts to take on whole new life forms - and I get crippled with anxiety.

My father is incapable of supporting me, and he’s my only family. I don’t have any other, except an uncle and aunt who live in Yorkshire whom I met again for the first time last year at my step-brother’s wedding.
We had fun and enjoyed each other’s company. Of course my aunt was full of remorse for not contacting me over the years.
I don’t hold onto those things – but when they bleat on about us having contact from now on, and they don’t make the effort to keep in contact, I simply think to myself that they’re frauds and they can fuck off.

Daddy is nearly 80. I can’t burden him with my mind, my worries, my struggles, my loneliness. There is no one else. There never has been – well, there was once Auntie Flo, who sadly died last year, but because my dad met Elaine (who he went onto marry) they fell out after 40 odd years of friendship. Auntie Flo’s gripe was because Elaine was married to her Auntie Flo’s cousin when dad and her ran off together. Auntie Flo was not a blood relative by the way.

Yes, I have friends. Some who know part of the inner workings of my mind, others whom I withhold the full picture from. But even with the friends that really know me, sometimes, you know - that doesn’t fill the gap.
I feel alone at times.
I could get desperately down about it - but I really try not to. I try my very hardest to remain hopeful throughout life. But God help me when daddy passes... but we don’t think about that.

I’m here. I’m well.I’m alive – and let me tell you – I am grateful for that; today, at least.
I’ve had a wonderful day with K, a really close friend. I neglected our friendship for a few months during the depth of my relationship with Dee (I'll use his new found name liberally now,until it becomes passe), and it felt good to connect with her again.
Bizarrely we share a similar story. She too was brought up by her father alone. How weird is that? She’s also mixed race and both our father’s did the same jobs.
Funny how things change. Yesterday I was bombarded with thoughts of my own death.
(My anxiety often manifests itself with my visualising laying dead.) But today, today I’m happy to be alive! Despite not drinking, which yesterday seemed the answer to all my worries. Yesterday I wanted to drink. I wanted to fuck someone or sniff, or better still all three. I wanted anything to get myself away from my own mind. You see, I can’t relapse this is the problem.

You know I can’t use drugs and I can’t drink. But sometimes, like everyone, I need a fucking escape; even for a few minutes.

Please don’t ask me why I don’t have just ‘one’ drink – Why would I? What is the point in that? My brain is hardwired to finnish whatever I start with intensity, ferocity and single mindedness. That's one rule for me, another for everyone esle by the way.
Anything I become passionate about, I flog... I do it,do it, do it...
There is something in my brain that believes that it is pointless for me to drink without getting drunk. I have never done that in my life. I guess things may have been different had I had a cut-off-point; you know, like throwing up when I’m drunk or passing out. But instead, chemicals made me feel somehow powerful. The more I had, the more fucked-up I felt, and the more damage I knew I was doing to my body – the more I got off on it.
I enjoyed the self abuse. I loved the feeling of taking my body, my mind, my life to its limits.
Interesting that when I started my psychology degree (where I met K.) one of our lecturers was an expert in addictions. Of course no one there knew anything about my situation.
Anyway, this professor reckoned that addictions are learned behaviors which can be un-learned.He agreed that his ideas were controversial, and because of that there was no way he could actually carry out an experiment to prove his theory on a human being – ethics not permitting.
And no doubt even if someone had offered themselves as a Guinea Pig, I like to think that his conscious wouldn’t have allowed him to play with someone’s sanity. After all, people only stop drinking and drugging after substance abuse, because they’re going, or have gone totally emotionally nuts.
External upheaval, in my belief is not enough to stop and addict from using.

I like the idea of offering myself to the professor. Calm down You! I’m talking as a human Guinea Pig – but i would never dare risk it.
I couldn’t. I can’t tell you how bonkers I was before rehab. I see myself and at the time as being quietly ’hardcore.’ I didn't shout about it. It was more sinister than that. It was more personal. I battered my brain with chemicals which were often not fit for human consumption – and I existed through the chaos that came with that- clearly hopeful that things would not always be as they were.

I watched K. this evening drink two brandy and cokes before we left to go home.
K. is not a light weight – the girl can drink. But she gets drunk when she chooses, and tonight drunkeness was clearly not on her agenda.

Well, even if it had been and she hadn't achieved it, she didn’t get into a strop because her drinking session had been cut short. (We got to the bar really late.)
I, on the other hand, had I been drinking and there was no more booze on the menu - would have:

a) paid a ridiculous amount to get a cab to anywhere that was open so I could buy some more.
B) Gone straight into a dark, sulky mood and became awful to be around.

My ideal with regards drinking and using drugs would be: I could go out and get totally wasted, caning whatever the hell I wanted – which would be cocaine and vodka and a spot of wine. And I'd do this maybe once or twice a month. It wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on my mental health or long lasting problems with my physical well being. I would be able to work, focus, and enjoy my life with no obsessive interference, violent mood swings and my depression would not become crippling.

What I have no desire for is to be able to ‘learn’ to drink socially - a glass of wine with dinner or a couple of glasses on the occasional night out adds up, to me, as not worth doing. Not for you. For you, it's good, It's healthy.For Dee, it's the way forward, but for me, I view it as pointless. I don't want a little bit of something here and there or even frequently. I want everything, whenever I feel like it. I want the ability to get trashed, with no pay back (except a hangover of course. I can cope with a hang over.) But my emotional demise? Well that's something that terrifies me.

But still, would I try it?
Would I balls!
Are you sure? Never?
I very, very, very, very much doubt it.














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