Why are you here and what brought you here

A piece I wrote for my last counselling skills course presentation answering the question above.

There is a short answer and a long answer to why I am here . The short answer is that I was looking for something I could put on my CV that would show evidence for the skills I was accruing through the volunteering  work I had been doing. The long answer a bit more complicated and requires a bit of context…

I was a daydreamy, shy child and spent most of my formative years feeling like I didn’t quite fit anywhere. Although that now sounds quite upsetting, I think it was actually liberating. As a result, being normal or fitting in has never been a motivating factor for me. I think that’s meant I’ve got to be more playful, more experimental, and forge deeper connections with similar “freaks and geeks” who also suffered from feeling like the world was not quite made for them in a nebulous, undefined way. I have had the opportunity to create again and again different worlds with different people that fit us just fine – no judgements, just little bubbles where we could have fun and be ourselves. On the plus side, that’s meant I have developed a talent for connecting with people quickly and easily (particularly one-on-one) by being myself and letting other people do the same. On the minus side I am still utterly abysmal at superficial small talk, especially in groups where the focus always seems to be on homogeny rather than individuality.

The fun little bubble I had at home, was interrupted for a while at age 8 by my parents divorcing (an event I have unconsciously managed to black out fairly successfully. I can remember the day they split up and then moving into a new house - but apparently there is a whole year that separates those events and I have no idea what happened or what that was like). However, my mum and brother and myself did manage to rebuild a smaller bubble that was no less fun and felt a good deal safer. I had good friends at primary school and I somehow even managed to be accepted in the judgement fuelled world of secondary school, albeit as the ‘weird, clumsy’ one. But that was ok because I was quite weird and fairly clumsy at the time (the body I have now I have pretty much had since the beginning of secondary school when I curiously and suddenly woke up one day with height and boobs and hips and the rest. I towered over everyone else for that entire year, when slowly but surely most others started to catch me up). I felt accepted and loved for being me both at home and at school (though it wasn’t all lovely as this was punctuated by my dad making me feel bad every now and again for being too fat and/or too shy. Funnily enough being told you are ‘too whatever’ never actually seems to solve or change that particular attribute but does make you feel shameful about it).

Alas, alack this could not last forever. When I was 13 my mum met and fell for a man who had four kids. We therefore needed a bigger house. So we moved. We moved away from the safe, accepting worlds at home and at school that I had enjoyed up till this point and I was forced to exist in a home that made me feel unwanted, unwelcome and the source of all the problems the blended family faced, and attend a school that made me feel awkward and weird still – but in a shameful  way this time. I would sum up this time by the words ‘discord’ and ‘disharmony’ and ‘a constant sort of churny horrible tummy feeling’. I still had little safe bubbles here and there, it was just unfortunate that the worlds I managed to create with different people did not exist independently and we had to spend an inordinate amount of time in the ‘real’ world where judgements and fun did not exist as much.

I guess my main way to get through this time was similar to how my family dogs cope with having a bath. I put my head down and let it happen, just hoping against hope it would be over soon.

Eventually, I found my tribe. At 19 I got myself a job in a music shop and pretended to everyone that I knew a lot more about life than I did (though I’m fairly sure my innocence and naivety shone through despite my best efforts). At this point in my life, being accepted by people I thought were cool was mind blowingly revolutionary and I gave up the art course I was on to just work and hang out with these guys because, obviously, this feeling of contentment and acceptance was going to last forever right?

Not right.

Very oddly, real life started getting annoyingly in the way. People left, other people dated each other and the group dynamics were no longer the same. Although I was content it became clear to me that what made me happy at 21 was probably not going to carry on making me happy forever and ever I rather impulsively decided to go to university. The convention tends to be to quit things impulsively rather than join things impulsively (at least with me) but with a sudden burst of clarity - wanting to change things for myself, the way the people around me were changing their lives - became very important to me. Looking back, perhaps I had just managed to gain the confidence to try for something I knew I wanted and I knew would take hard work. It was an awesome decision, and probably the first real step on the road to me getting here.

It was also there that I met the total love of my life, Chloe. She was my soul mate and it was like breathing a huge sigh of relief when we found each other. This was in no way a romantic relationship but instead we described each other, fairly unironically, as ‘heterosexual life partners’ and she was pretty much my de facto girlfriend all throughout university. Although we both dated boys every now and again, no one could measure up to how we felt about each other. And lest there was ever any doubt, we would each spend a lot of time giving the ‘slow up and down side eye’ and being intimidatingly sarcastic to any boy that DARED show an interest in the other, and therefore no boy ever really stuck around long enough to matter. Which didn’t bother me then and bothers me even less nowadays. We just implicitly understood each other and were obsessed by the other (we would spend hours just talking about ourselves and how we felt about ourselves and how we felt about our friendship and never ever get bored). We had so much fun together that hardly anyone else ever got a look in. Apparently two girls excitedly chattering and giggling at every lecture, café, house party and club, wrapped up completely in what the other is saying, does not engender the invitation to join in.

Chloe was very, very sure about her thoughts, feelings, and opinions and I found that so exciting and refreshing. I still admire that about her today but I’m now a lot more content that my mind is flexible enough to change, and that seeing things from lots of points of view rather than rigidly sticking to your own opinion come hell or high water can have its downsides. But one thing she was completely inflexible on was the subject of therapy. Chloe had experienced a horrible childhood and this, manifested itself in lots of damaging behaviours. Therapy had cured her of that (well she still indulged in damaging behaviours but they were a lot more acceptable post-therapy than pre).  We surrounded ourselves with other broken people which meant that I didn’t have to feel bad about the copious amounts of drugs and alcohol I imbibed or the disordered eating habits I practised or the unsafe situations I got myself into, as there was always someone treating themselves worse than I did.

Regardless I had Chloe, I liked my life, everything made sense.

And then we had to graduate.

Although it hadn’t been a surprise that this would happen eventually I was still floored by it. Everything changed. I had no purpose and no direction and no Chloe (she was similarly shocked and rather than weather the storm together, we abandoned one another almost immediately). I had done a psychology degree with the idea of becoming an educational psychologist but the reality of having to work towards that suddenly felt insurmountable. I wanted everything to just fall into place and I had sort of assumed it would. But then I was left with a piece of paper that said my name and that I had a 2:i in Psychology BSc… and that was it. I was flabbergasted and genuinely had no idea what to do with myself. So I smoked lots and lots of weed and drank lots and lots wine and accrued jobs I didn’t really want, put my head down yet again and hoped it would be over soon.

Which, luckily, it was. I had a transformative trip around Europe with my brother when he finished university a year later and that clarity I’d had when I signed up for university returned to me. We had hardly any money so spent that whole trip just wandering around different European cities looking for parks to sit in and cheap food to eat. This allowed for a LOT of time to think. Without wanting to sound like a hippy or anything I love the way a metaphorical journey can match and marry to a literal journey. I started that trip so unsure about everything but having to live very simply and focus on the day to day, having the time to think and not think and just stare at the clouds, and talk to interesting and not interesting strangers, and have fun and fight with my brother - all made me realise that I was not happy as I was, but a vague plan of how I might make myself happy started to form. Starting with doing a job that had meaning, preferably one that meant I could help people, preferably one that meant I could work with children and young people. I had felt so stuck right up until the moment we started travelling. Moving around, seeing new things, staying in no place for longer than a few days made me feel completely free. I understood that the stuck feeling I had was of my own creation. Whenever people tell me how stuck they are nowadays I want to tell them and show them that they are not – that even the slightest movement in any direction will start to free them. It might not happen quickly, it might not happen the way they planned it, but just wiggling a little out of the chains they’ve wrapped round themselves will start to unravel even the tightest chains. But of course I can’t tell them that or show them that as it’s something that everyone has to learn for themselves, just as I did.

I returned from that trip energised and excited about my future. I landed a job as an outreach worker working with parents within a month of my return and it felt, just as starting my degree had felt, like another leap forward in getting me on the path I wanted to go on.

But then I met a man who sort of destroyed me completely. That feeling I was so sure of whilst travelling of wanting to help people was fulfilled wholly by him. I wanted to save him and give him everything of myself, and he greedily and unsurprisingly accepted it. It was a relationship that made me realise love can be destructive as well as nourishing. It was chaotic and messy from day one but I think I can be forgiven for not expecting things to happen like him trying to kill himself, or him calling me up to bust him out of the psychiatric unit at 4am, or him ending up in hospital with pancreatitis that meant he spent a month in a coma and nearly died twice. I saw him weigh six stone and have a colostomy bag and be so full of rage at life that it scared me. All in all it wasn’t good. I had my job to keep me in some sort of routine but every single day was a struggle to get through.

Eventually, and it was bound to happen sooner or later, I cracked and crumbled from the weight of it all and, remembering Chloe’s sage advice from years earlier, decided I would go into therapy as my only other choice was suicide. I had been unhappy before but this was something much uglier and harder to deal with. Therapy allowed me to confront that, and everything else as well.

I now think that I had to be completely broken in order to build myself back up again. The way I describe therapy to people who’ve not had it is that it’s like slitting yourself open from throat to naval, slowly taking out everything inside that constitutes you, examining it from every angle, and then putting it back in a way that works better - having grown to understand how you work, how all your experiences have added up to be more than the sum of their parts, you’re then able to use that knowledge to set yourself on a path that is more fulfilling and ultimately more enjoyable. It doesn’t mean you won’t experience bad things from time to time but it allows you to deal with anything bad in a much more functional fashion. The one thing it is not is easy. In fact it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because it was so relentless. I constantly had to think about my choices, about the things I was carrying around with me, about where I wanted to go and how I would get there.

Slowly, just as in my trip around Europe, I wiggled enough to start feeling less stuck. After a few months I cut off all contact with my ex-boyfriend and, though that was hard, that made me feel freer. I repaired relationships with the loved ones who’d been shocked, appalled and scared by my relationship with him – and had therefore started to withdraw from me. I started doing things for myself, that made me feel good and seemed like they might lead somewhere (or at least look good on my CV). Every six months I started something new, like volunteering at a playscheme for disabled children, mentoring teenagers, and working at a counselling service for young people. I grew in confidence, I grew surer of where I wanted to be and wanted to get to, I eventually fell in love with a man that I felt nourished rather than destroyed by. I felt I had accepted myself. And to quote Carl Rogers: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

After two years of therapy I was ready to carry everything I had learned forward and this course seemed the perfect way to do that. I felt like it would not only give me the opportunity to ‘peak behind the curtain’ of therapy and counselling, something that had given me back myself and my life and therefore something I found fascinating, but that it was yet another thing I could do with my time that felt constructive and fulfilling. It was also, as I said at the start, something I thought might look good on my CV as evidence for all the new skills I was accruing through my volunteering. And therefore hopefully another piece in the puzzle to getting me a job working directly with young people, and eventually to me getting on an educational psychology course.

Everything suddenly started to feel like it was falling into place even though it had taken my whole life to get to that point. It was so much easier and at the same time much harder than I had thought it was going to be. I have finally got really far along the path I had imagined for myself when siting around in European parks whiling away the time with daydreams because they were free. I’ve contributed to and enjoyed filling my spare time with volunteering work that energises me. I have now also landed myself a job that feels fulfilling, and gives me the opportunity to work directly with young people who need support like I always wanted. In fact it’s startling how I am able to compare and contrast myself to how different I am starting my current job with where I was starting my previous job. I walked into the new place feeling more confident, more able, and more like I was supposed to be there. As a result I’ve managed to already forge some close connections with people that also work there. They know about my life, about what I’m up to at the weekend, they know my likes and dislikes, and I feel comfortable sharing all of that with them. In my old job I was miserable when I started and rarely shared anything of myself with people at work. This time round has been much more enjoyable, less anxiety inducing, and I feel so much more at ease more quickly – just by dent of walking into a place and being me. I was only able to have that freedom because of all the experiences that have brought me here, but mostly because of the positive experiences I have had in the last three years or so. I would not be nearly as confident or comfortable being there without the job I’d done before, the volunteering, and especially this course. It has solidified and stretched my instincts for connecting with people. Particularly those people who are finding life a struggle. 

I also, finally, have an important relationship that is healthy. Even with de facto girlfriend Chloe, who I got so much from, we were so co-dependent that stepping outside of the safe bubble of our friendship was scary and intimidating. With my current partner, and he does feel like my partner, we are able to encourage and support one another to try and push for the things we want outside of our relationship – that develop us as individuals and mean we can bring back that individual growth into our relationship. Although we are FAR from perfect, I can’t believe that living with a boy (I Live With A Boy!!) works so well for me. I never imagined I was going to be anything than the crazy single friend people had. In fact, in all areas of my life, the word ‘crazy’ can no longer be applied as strongly. More importantly perhaps, the little bubbles of fun and safety I once clung to are no longer needed. I don’t need insulation from the outside world any longer.

I have found being part of this course something that has changed me profoundly. Like my new job, I have had this feeling of being in the exact right place at the exact right time. The group we have constructed and nurtured together is something I feel proud to be a part of, the values we tend towards, of being respectful, non-judgemental, honest and empathic are values that I feel that I’ve digested and understand much more fully than I did before. I think I’m a better person for having been part of this group, being able to listen and learn from everyone else and giving myself over to the learning we’ve done together and as individuals has been invaluable to me. It’s something that I’ll be sad to say goodbye to, but always happy I was a part of. 

The thing is.

I am not what you might call, a direct person. I speak big about being honest and open and shit but speaking and actually doing are quite different. Firstly, it's not something I was taught how to do. In my family we never discuss the thing, we discuss everything around the thing but never the thing itself. We passive aggressively make references to the thing ('yes, well, if you don't know why I'm talking like this then there's no point in me talking at all'), or bring the thing into the room at points where it resolutely cannot be discussed (e.g. 'THING!!! Could you pass me the gravy please grandma?') but being upfront and honest does not come naturally or easily to me or anyone in my family. Over the last couple of yeas I have, almost from scratch, had to teach myself (with help from therapy) how to feel feelings (which is intrinsically bound with confronting the thing in a healthy and communicative way). Which is crazy right?! I mena, it's not that I've been some kind of robot-humanoid sent back from the future to kill John Connor (or whatevs) but feeling feelings was not something I was very good at. I knew they existed but I sort of hid from them or pretended like I couldn't see them or just pushed them down and down to make nice balls of stomach cancer. Now I'm able to go 'yeah! the thing! see the thing! look at the shape and texture of it! the thing makes me angry!/sad!/etc!' This is better. The only way to stop whatever negativity is plaguing you is to really sit in it, and let it in, and let it take you over until you know it intimately. It's like, by doing that you release the pressure valve or take away it's power or something. Some kind of ineffable alchemy occurs in a way that eventually, eventually make it better (BUT FUCK KNOWS HOW LONG IT'LL TAKE). The easiest option is of course to run and hide so I've always done that instead. Never being honest, not being real. The crazy part is: turning around and surrendering yourself to the scary feelings that are chasing you is actually much much easier. Maybe not in the short term, but a prolonged bout of neurotic anxiety compared to a short burst of 'FUUUUCK. OW. SHIT. Huh. Oh yeah. I am brave and good after all' is less stressful, ultimately less painful, and wastes so much less time.

But once you accept that as a 'capital 't', "Truth"' you have to be aware of it all the fucking time. It means treating yourself with enough respect to let yourself feel shit because you know that's what you deserve because you're you and you're awesome and you're brave and you are good. This is maybe the harder bit. Living with the enlightenment (if I might be so bold as to call it that). Putting theory into practice. Making choices that are right. Making sure you do the right thing by others as well. Confronting, not only your negative feelings, but not protecting people from their negative feelings either (being open and honest means sometimes being open and honest about shit that you know people would rather not hear). It is not your job to protect anyone from the bad stuff. If anything, by doing that you're painting yourself as some sort of Messianic figure who decides what you will allow people to handle or not handle. Which is patronizing and robs people of their ability to think and act for themselves. (Who the fuck am I to decide what you can or cannot handle?!).

Anyway, the last couple of days I've had to do things I would rather not do and say things I'd rather not say to people's faces. But I did it because it was right. I can do things that are right now, for the right reasons. This is progress like you wouldn't believe. As a result, I get to relax a bit as I think elsewhere something special and good is happening to me, to my life, and with people in my life at the moment. It's nice. But it feels earned, and that's what makes it all the sweeter.

Busted

Although I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling mild embarrassment for me just being me and saying and doing things that me does and says (which I will then, when alone, beat myself up mercilessly for) it's rare that I get that full cheek-blush burning red hot embarrassment that you imagine when people go 'oh my god it was soooo embarrassing!' Maybe because I live my life mired in a state of constant horror with just how socially gauche or gullible or clumsy I can be, my standards for what actually counts as 'embarrassing' are much more stringent than they are for other people who don't live in the constant state of mortification that plauges my everyday existence. So let me tell you that when I was embarrassed last night I can assure you I was actually embarrassed. Like, properly so. Like how you, as somewhat normally functioning members of society, might experience. There are only a few other times when I felt as embarrassed as I did last night so, to paint you a little word picture and put things into context, they are as follows;

1. The time I walked into school (secondary school no less!) with my skirt somehow tucked into my bag so that my knickers were on display. Yup.

2. The time I went for coffee with a boy I liked and when I came home I realised I had SEVERE coffee stains on my front teeth and must have had for the entire time I was talking to him. Interestingly, we never went for coffee again. (Well, not together at any rate. I am to assume he has drunk coffee since that encounter. If indeed he can bear to stomach the thought of imbibing delicious caffine-filled beverages without wanting to vomit at the thought of my dark brown stained hillbilly teeth.)

3. Pretty much any of the times I spoke to the Social Psychology lecturer that I had an intense crush on in university. In particular how I would try and shoehorn in as many liberal writer references as I could muster whenever I cornered him alone in a room. One week he included a Milan Kundera quote in one of his powerpoint slides which I took as a sure sign he wanted to fuck me as much as I wanted to fuck him given that I'd stand outside his classrooms holding books uncomfortably close to my face as nonchalantly as it is possible to hold a book that close to you when you are stood up and trying to hold your stomach in and keep your face relaxed and pretend to read words and be hyperaware of whether or not a man is looking at you without actually looking at him to ensure he could see the front cover and spine of said books and realise how intellectual, and therefore fuckable, I was - because reading words is a well known seduction technique, that's why all those self-help books and dating manuals are actually just a step-by-step guide to becoming more literate (on opposite day) - and two days before the aforementioned lecture I'd done this 'sexy trick' of mine with 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. Looking back however I am almost certain that my instincts weren't terribly far off with the 'he wanted to do me' assumption. Learning recently through the grapevine that he's been having an affair with another lecturer makes me more sure of this. (Life Lesson #38 - the guy willing to fuck someone he works with who isn't his wife is sure as hell willing to fuck an enthusiastic student with big boobs and low self-esteem.) Had I been a little less googly-eyed and panting and a little more aloof I think I could have managed in locking that ass down. As it was, I became so flustered with desire whenever I was within twenty feet of him that I could do little more than try and string together sentences that contained words like 'George Orwell', 'anti-fascist league', and 'social constructivism' in various permutations and order of usage. Then pant and be googly-eyed, then leave. Whenever someone (invariably male) asks me 'did you fuck him?' if the subject of this crush arises in conversation I have to sadly shake my head 'no' and smile wryly because of everything I just said; 'no I did not get to fuck the guy I had a scarily intense crush on, to the point I could barely breathe properly when we were in a room together making me appear like one of those wheezing nerds you see in American movies about college frat houses. Surprisingly'. I still have about four or five books he mentioned in passing that I bought and never read and then lied about reading to him about how much I enjoyed those books and how much they 'opened my mind' (because if you want a boy to like you, you just have to pretend to like the things that he likes! Science) that I do intend to read one day when I can be bothered because the fantasy of us one day running into each other at a conference about special needs/learning disabilities (which I do sometimes have to attend as part of my job and was one of his main research interests so there is a logical thought flow to this idea) and he'll mention Berger & Luckman or Michael Foucault and I'll be able to answer and engage as knowledgeably as I would if he mentioned Lauren Conrad & Heidi Pratt or Robert Pattinson (aka 'things I am actually interested in talking about'). And then he fucks me because, you know. (Or the even better fantasy where I am a successful writer who has completed a series of short stories and essays about identity and am invited back to my alma mater to discuss how brilliant and successful I am and he is so overwhelmed by lust and so impressed by my work that he compliments my brain and then ravishes my body in his office.) (TMI?) NEWAYS. Point is (!), I cringe as well as pant a little whenever I think of him and the rubbishy girly girl loonhead I turned into whenever I was around him.

4. Speaking of which. Myspace; what a charming little invention that was for those of us looking to get laid without leaving our rooms. I had a handful of dalliances thanks to that particular internet revolution and, unlike match.com, all it cost me was my dignity and some of my soul, rather than dignity, my soul, and £14.99 a month. I diligently accepted friends and messaged many a young suitor on that social networking platform. Some worked out (in the short term at least), some didn't, but I had my fingers in a lot of pies for a year or two (so to speak) and it was all in good fun. [Cut to:] One day stood in a Spar shop a boy approached me asking if I was 'Susan'. No, I informed him sadly, I was not. Oh how I wished to be Susan! Fucking bitch gets cute dudes coming up and talking to her in Spar shops! But then, through the internet stalkery lessons I had quickly and naturally acquired as part of the dot.com era, I found the boy on myspace and realised he thought 'Sazz' was in fact 'Susan'! We had had a brief exchange of myspace messages a year or so earlier until I had grown bored because he was four years younger than myself and looked like a total stoner (like I actually had any standards!), and thus it turned out the girl 'Susan' I hated was myself all along! (Many years later a similar breakthrough would occur during therapy but had little to do with myspace and more to do with my relationship with my parents.) By revealing his prior knowledge of me I saw this as an open invitation to become mildly obsessed with him ('mildly obsessed' by my standards is 'restraining order time' by most other people's). I'd look at the conversations he was having with his other myspace friends and was able (who knows to what degree of success) to intimate the sort of relationships he had and was having with other people (girls). I'd look at his photos AND the photos on his friends accounts to try and get a patchwork story to who this guy really was. To try and figure out exactly what he was about. I did all this because... I don't know. Because he called me 'Susan' in a Spar shop one time I guess. That was really all I had to work on, because although online presence can give you the sketch of a person, it doesn't really mean anything IRL and although I found him attractive in the dull light of a Spar shop it wasn't like I thought I'd found my soul mate. He was just a cute guy that was obviously into me enough to recognise my face as the face of a girl he had sent a couple of myspace messages to (the fact that he'd got my name wrong so clearly wasn't that into me didn't figure into this equation). Cute boy + bit of attention = unending devotion. So, anyway, MONTHS later I saw him out when I wasn't very drunk and he was. He screamed my name when he saw me and later kissed me on both cheeks and the nose; 'Do you think he likes me?' I asked my friend as we walked home that night 'fuck off does he like you Sazz you imbecile' she replied (I may be paraphrasing). It's at this point I wish I could hop in my DeLorean, go play 'Johnny B. Goode' onstage and fuck this boy when I was given the chance. He revealed he liked me and I did nothing about it. Fumbly, awkward sex with a teenager (as he was then. But over 18, Mr Policeman!) was just a bold 'well, come on then let's do it' move away and I blew it. Still, my devotion lingered because... Nose kisses! Screaming my name in my face when I entered a club! (Which remains the greatest confidence booster I have ever had.) Surely we just had to be in the same room again and then I could pull my bold move and nab that ass finally? What I forgot to factor in, as well as the fact that what I liked most about him was that he seemed mildly interested in me, was that boys - especially teenage boys - don't have very long attention spans. So days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and when I ran into him next the tables were turned. This time I was wasted and he less so, he had managed to affect a confident swagger and I had lost the clueless 'huh?' face that I'd greeted him with in our encounters in the past and replaced it with a 'I'm not sure but I think you and I could fall in love one day' vibe. Which was clearly a bit less of a turn-on. I managed to corner him with conversation and then let slip something very small but very telling about the fact that we'd both been to Amsterdam in the past six months; 'How did you know that?' he asked, genuinely mystified. I recoiled in horror and stammered something about needing a wee (as eloquent as ever under pressure) and ran away. Don't think I ever spoke to him again either. I had, however innocently, revealed my internet stalkery as I only knew this because of photos I'd seen, not on his myspace page, but his mates. There's no way I could have known about it without having done some serious internet delving and the weed and alcohol I'd consumed that evening mixed together in such a way that I thought emphasizing our similarities (i.e. getting stoned) was more important than concealing the fact I was an insane person who'd been secretly stalking him for months. I'm not sure what embarrasses me most about that story. Probably all of it.

5. As odd as it sounds for a formally promiscuous heterosexual female to say, for the last year or so I'd sort of forgotten that men can be attractive and just plain nice to look at. Some are tall, some are short, some have beards, some a bit of stubble, some are skinny, some are slightly chubby. Any of these combinations works for me on any given day if they have a glint in their eye and a nice mouth. Now, I'd known this as a conceptual fact for the last year but I was too knee deep in my own abject misery to really understand it as a solid reality. Until now. Now wherever I look I see cutie mctooties all over the show. The lanky barman with greasy 90's grunge hair and a plaid shirt on makes me swoon, the bearded might-be-a-gay shop assistant at HMV with salt and pepper hair (not to be confused with Salt 'n Pepa hair) gets my lust synapses firing on full alert, I keep seeing these boys; men, who I like looking at. I can't imagine that they've been in hiding for the last year which means I must just not have been looking or noticing. Poor loves! Anyway, now I am both looking AND noticing. Sometimes simultaneously! Which I happened to do last night when a douchey looking guy with a We Are Scientists haircut and a pink checked cowboy shirt walked passed my table. All I did was make eye contact and then when he had passed murmured 'very nice' to myself. That's all it was, or all it was supposed to be. Except it wasn't because my friend saw the whole thing. There's me in my own little world, silently appreciating one of God's douchey creatures, and there's my friend watching me make sex eyes at some boy and then mouth 'very nice' once he's walked away. She was staring at me in disbelief as I turned my head and attention back to the group of people I was with. I caught her eye and it dawned on me that she knew what had just gone down and we both suddenly burst into laughter like our lives depended on it, to the extreme consternation of the other people we were sat with who had no clue what a tool I'd just made myself look.

And that was it. I have no idea why it embarrassed me so but it really really did. I think, looking back over these stories what freaks me out is revealing a part of myself that I didn't mean to (indeed quite literally in point one where I inadvertently showed off my ass). What I don't like is getting busted (unlike the band Busted of which I remain extremely fond). So I either accept that I will occasionally show parts of myself that I'd rather keep hidden and just be cool with that or spend all my time neurotically in control of every situation so that I never have to expose myself unwillingly to anyone ever again.

Or just turn these moments into blog posts and let the internet deal with it.

Yeah, let's go with that one.

The Rules

I spent a long time trying to be ok.

(I wasn't ok for a long time.)

Longer than I probably care to admit but, in this case, there was a particular reason for it and I can pinpoint it's genesis and evolution. I went through my five stages, not in a clear cut manner and not exactly in sequence but I think that's normal. Each was difficult in their own way but, weirdly (and something no one ever talks about that I can remember), each with their own pluses.

Denial was probably the worst but made me manic (as it has a tendency to do) and meant I got loads done. I didn't need more than 5 hours of sleep a night, I achieved everything I wanted to each day at work, I didn't really need food, and I exercised every day and lost a stone and a half in about a month. That was good. What was bad was sleeping with a guy that had treated me very badly in the past and feeling completely disconnected from every one and every thing. That wasn't so fun. But it did, as I said, have it plus points.

Anger was awesome and frightening. As anger is wont to be. As every middle class white girl will tell you, anger is something we are taught to fear rather than utilise. Which, ironically, makes me kind of angry. Anger is one of the best tools you have for changing things. It is necessary but that is never made clear. You're never taught have to use it effectively. It's always, pretend everything is fine, act like you're normal, never access your golden goddess and bring down a reign of fire which leaves you in a no-mans land of nothingness. Which sucks. Because when your golden goddess is rising everyone is telling you to stay quiet and sit down and don't be any trouble (if there is one piece of advise I wish I could impart to the teenage me it is that you should always, always be trouble and stand up and scream). Anger is so important (do not let anyone tell you different). The trick is (as always), to make sure it's directed at the right targets. This is where I fell down. I was angry at him, sure, but mostly I angry at me for not being there for him, I was angry at my friends and family for not being there for me (they kinda were but when you do your golden goddess shit no one knows where to look or how to act, and to be fair I didn't know where people should be looking or how I wanted them to act but I know I fucking hated them for not looking or acting in a way that made me feel better). I was angry at boys from the past that meant something to me, I was angry at God, I was angry at it all. Everyone fucking pissed me off and I wanted them to disappear. Anger might galvanise you but it also makes you fucking terrifying to yourself and everyone else. It continues to linger now but it's not at the top of tree anymore which is good because it's also, amongst other things, it's fucking exhausting.

Bargaining came and went pretty quickly. I prayed often to a God I don't believe in. I said to myself a number of times 'I'm ok as long as he's ok, so he has to be ok' and then he wasn't. He nearly died more times than I probably know. Which made the whole bargaining thing out to be a fool. (It was a fool but I didn't want bargaining to know that). 'I won't talk to him ever again if he's ok' 'I'll fall out of love with him if makes him ok', 'I don't care what it takes just please make him ok' but no matter what I did or didn't do everything was so random and chaotic that it seriously freaked me the fuck out. It made a total mockery of the God I didn't believe in. Although religion has always fascinated and repulsed me in equal measure (if you feel the same then it's Joseph Campbell all the way baby fyi) there was always thistiny part of me that thought I controlled it all. That I had power far exceeding the power you have. That I could influence the outcome of things. If I really, really wish for Barack Obama to become president then he will. If I really, really hope for Alexander to win X-Factor then she will. If I really, really wish for tis job then I'll get it. It always worked before, why not now? Turns out, that's just not how things operate. Life is random and chaotic.

Depression meant one thing and one thing only: Tuc biscuits. A lot of them. God I love Tuc biscuits. I love them when that's all that'll love me back. During this time I didn't exercise, I didn't write, I didn't do anything but stuff my face with Tuc biscuits. And they were delicious (they would have been had I tasted them but I was too busy stuffing my face to taste anything). Depression hurt like a motherlover but it did mean I got to eat a lot of Tuc biscuits. Everything has its upside.

The one thing I didn't get was that slight thrill from it all. You know that thrill? That thing where there's this part of you that's actually kind of enjoying it all. Watching from a distance and thinking 'well,what's wrong with a little destruction?'

I didn't feel that. I gleaned no joy from any of it, no matter the pluses. It was all horrible. I felt horrible.

You know what though, anyone else I would have cut them a lot more slack for what they went through than I did for myself. I fell in love and carried our baby (for a bit) and he nearly died. That's a lot of fucking stuff to cope with and I did cope with it. I needed professional help for a while but that's ok, sometimes asking for help is the only way to cope. So that's what I did.

I'm here, a few months later feeling, well, not good exactly but I'm not cutting my wrists either. I've processed. I've reached acceptance. I've worked out what I want and what I don't want. I feel strong. Which is when he contacts me:

'I'm home for the weekend. Shall I call you?' says the text messageShall I call you? Four words, all of them containing a lot of power in a sentence that he writes from him to me. 'That's good news!' I reply with a stupid exclamation mark I would never use in real life 'Yeah, you can call me whenever'. I continue. 'Ok.' he says. And then I wait, and then I forget I'm waiting, and then I check my phone when I remember I'm supposed to be waiting. And so on and so forth.

What happened to acceptance? What happened to me moving on and doing better? Why did they say something about this on The Hills the other day and it made me laugh and go on a 'YEAH! boys always DO contact you when you've just forgot about them! ALWAYS!' rant for about five minutes without ever thinking it would apply to me ever again? Just... all of it... why?

Equality and Diversity

I had to do an training course entitled 'Exploring Equality and Diversity' yesterday. All day. For six hours. For six hours, all day. Did I mention it was scheduled to last all day? I wasn't looking forward to it much as I figured the following would do just as well and would mean I didn't have to get up earlier than usual and then drive for 40 minutes through traffic jam after traffic jam and then have a nightmare finding somewhere to park and then realise I didn't have the right change so the motherbastarding machine took 30p more than it rightly deserved:

'Don't be racist'
'Ok'
'Don't be homophobic'
'... Allllright'
'Don't make fun of people in wheelchairs'
Tut. Sigh. Eye roll. 'Fine' [belligerence]

The end. That's all that is really required; 'be an adult instead of being a total dick '. Oh right. Be an ADULT, NOT a dick! It all seems so simple now!

However, despite me pouting from about 8pm the night before because GOD! I don't want to go do this piece of shit 'training' that I don't even need because I'm only homophobic when gays are around and am hardly ever racist and rarely openly mock the differently-abled and I've got work that I actually could be doing it turned out to be not nearly as awful as I thought it was going to be.

I got there half an hour early because, hello, I'm me. Although I berated myself for being such a loser eager beaver it turned out to be a good thing because I got to hear the most tragic-slash-hilarious story I've ever heard in my entire life.

I entered a room full of the trainers (as in people that do the training, not the Nike shop). One was chuckling at every sentence that left his mouth and I immediately didn't like him. There was a lady who looked like Anne Diamond (Nick Owen-era) and another man who had the very definition of 'wide-boy' down pat. He was not-so-subtly needling the chuckling man about all manner of things which only made Chuckles laugh more. It culminated in:
'Well you can see why his wife tried to kill him'. Chuckles chuckled. 'It's true!' said the younger Del Boy.
At this point, although I had been sat at the back of the room trying to studiously avoid being drawn in to the conversation my ears suddenly pricked up.

It would seem that Chuckles lived in a house with his second wife which had a trap door to the basement just past the front door. One day she unscrewed the trap door from its hinges, relaid the carpet and awaited his arrival home. He stepped into his house, fell through the floor but got stuck in the carpet.

And I lolled (silently, whilst pretending to read a book).

He then revealed that this had happened before he married her. And at the time he was a cop. And her dad was in prison. For stabbing a cop. And at the wedding, just after the dad had got out, someone made a lol-worthy comment about the plastic knives and forks at the buffet being plastic because the dad couldn't be trusted. So dada got out his flick knife and stabbed lollerboy.

'I guess I should have known then that it wasn't going to work out'. Yes. That might have tipped you off had her attempting to kill you TWICE (oh yeah, she tried again but we didn't find out how) hadn't tipped you off previously. Chuckles was, quite frankly, a sap. And I warmed to him.

All this knowledge was acquired before 9.30am. That is the start of a good day. Anything that begins with juicy, juicy gossip of a tragic nature is great. I'm happy from that point on. Eventually everyone else filed in and the training commenced, this is where things took a downturn because treating people with respect apparently is:
'political correctness gone mad'
and
'well we're bending over backwards too much nowadays for them alldon't you think' (emphasis mine. Who? WHO IS 'THEM'?)

I love the phrase 'political correctness gone mad'. It' second only to 'I'm not racist but...' in phrases I just ADORE to hear tripping off other people's tongues. Because, pretty much, no and no. So you can't go to work and call someone a poof anymore? Good. So you can't refer to people as 'golliwogs' anymore? Good. So you can't regale the office with your learned-off-by-heart Bernard Manning routine anymore? GOOD! These are good things! It is not 'mad', it is something that was required all along. I'm sorry that you now have to start taking other people's feelings into account when you walk into work and not be a dick anymore. That must be so tragic for you, to have to behave like a decent human being during the hours of 9 to 5. It's awful, I know. BUT (and here's the kicker) you're a dick. I am all for freedom of speech but you modify your behaviour depending on your audience. We all do it, all the time. People have the right to feel safe that they won't be discriminated against when they walk into their place of work. If that means you have to leave your Bernard Manning jokes at home then boo freaking hoo but they're there waiting for you when you get home just in time for you to don your white hoods and go stand round a bonfire somewhere. If you so choose.

Anyway, yeah, that got me a little riled. I said my piece and everyone nodded and 'mmm-hmmed' in agreement (because no one wants direct confrontation and was agreeing with everything said in that room. People are funny) and that was that. Lunchtime. I always like to discuss my thought and feelings about Carol Thatcher before lunch. Gets me hungry. For blood. Anyway, when we came back we had a talk from a guy from the Ethnic Minority something something service. He works with gypsies and travelers basically. The council effing LOVES giving ridiculously long titles to jobs, it loves it so much it wants to make sweet sweet love to long job title names all day long (my full job title is 'Children's Information Service Outreach Worker - Parent Information' for example). So yeah, although I had not thought that attending this training was going to do more than bore me, this guy completely reinvented my views about gypsies and travelers. Although I've never gone out of my way to badmouth travelers and Daily Mail coverage on them has always made me vaguely uncomfortable (Daily Mail coverage on anything makes me vaguely uncomfortable to be fair) I'd never thought about how our opinion (as a society I mean, but also yours and mine individual opinions I would wager) is comparable to how black people were treated in the American deep South in the 1960's. Or that comments made by Himmler about gypsies were not a million miles away from comments made by Jack Straw just 10 years ago on the same topic. This sort of 'they're dirty, they steal, I wouldn't want them living near me' has only one end point and it's not good. It's the sort of end point that ends up with 2 million people gassed to death just because of their heritage. I had never, ever thought of it like that before. It freaked me out I was so happy to implicitly condone such racist attitudes and hadn't realised how sick it was. So I got juicy gossip, a chance to soapbox and then had my mind blown all in the course of one day.

I guess the moral of the story is always keep an open mind. And don't be a dick.

There Is No Spoon

I feel like everything I've been through in the last few months; every emotion, every plot twist, every argument and misunderstanding, has changed me in ways I still haven't quite come to terms with yet. It's an unsettling feeling to have. I feel constantly out of sorts - even in my dreamiverse - just because I don't really know me at the moment, I'm not entirely sure who this new person is or how she's going to react to certain things. I think I like her, she seems much more at ease with herself that the previous versions of me for one thing, but I haven't really had a chance to test that out yet. It's sort of like having The Joker in the room and not being sure if he's going to sit there quietly or blow your shit up. It could be either or neither or both simultaneously at any time. There's no way of predicting it.

Like I say, unsettling.

See, I've done depressed before, I've done self-loathing before, I've done fucked-up before, and there's an element of me that yearns for those incarnations of myself because I know the script for those characters. I understand their motivations, their hopes, their fears, their beliefs and their needs. I know how they operate. And this time, the one time that I think I have a legitimate excuse to be depressed or fucked up or self-loathing - I've rejected it. I burned off all of those persona's because they didn't work for me, but obviously something must take their place. So I now exist as something new. It doesn't feel like a good thing or a bad thing - it's just what it is. I'm very aware that I desperately want the last few months to mean something, to be profound in some way. I want to walk away feeling more empowered, more willing and able to face other challenges that will inevitably occur at some point; but, at the same time, I don't want to exploit events of the last few months for my own gain. That seems... disrespectful somehow. A man nearly lost his life, for me to walk away feeling good about that, in whatever way, seems horrific.

So what I've done is distance myself from everyone and everything. I sort of feel like a social anthropologist at the moment. Like I'm observing the world and my new self in the world through a scholarly eye - trying best to soak up what I can and learn something from it. I'm not sure that's a healthy way to be; to feel like you're apart and above* everyone else. Yet it feels necessary for the time being, that I have to be separate in order to absorb what I need and figure out how to be human again; but armed with deeper and wider insight this time. I desperately want to learn how to become an adult.

I've always been obsessed with the idea of becoming an adult. When I was younger (and by that I mean maybe up till a year or two ago) I thought that meant getting a mortgage, a husband, a 2 year fixed savings bond, and breeding. Now I believe these are just our cultural signifiers of adulthood, but to have them doesn't necessarily mean you are an adult. I will never fail to be surprised by the number of people ten, twenty, whatever, years older than I, all thoe who have those cultural signifiers but who do not behave in a manner that I believe to be mature, well-reasoned or adult-like. I hear tales of 40-something women sending text messages where they diss one another's vaginas (really), people in their 30's seriously considering fucking up another persons hair straighteners just to get a modicum of revenge for an event they feel justly annoyed about but unjustly justified in taking revenge for, men deciding to date a person, breaking up with that person, deciding to date them again and then breaking up with them again (and then dating them again). All in the space of a week and a half. And then arguing the point when the object of their indecision calls them a jerk (they are a jerk). All of these people are technically 'adult'. They all have homes and loans and cars and jobs. They get dressed every day and make a choice to exist in the world as a person who may be old enough to be legally defined as an adult but who is not an adult. And it's this revelation that has made it apparent to me that being 'an adult' is something different from being 'an adult'.

The idea of 'grown ups' used to terrify me. People who have it all figured out and know what they want and how to get it and have all their ducks lined up and can discuss mortgage repayment schedules and the importance of interest rates. I didn't really want that for myself. I didn't know what I wanted instead but I knew I didn't want to be like 'them'. So you find yourself stuck in a half life; a place with no real responsibility yet paralysed by this unshakable ennui. A sense that things should be different but the options on offer don't entice you at all. And then, about a year ago, it dawned on me that by keeping my options open I was keeping myself still, which meant I was unable to ever go forwards and become an adult, become human, become a woman. So I started making choices. Which has lead me to somewhere that I've never been before. I'm out of my comfort zone.

I know I've been harping on about my last relationship somewhat but it was one of the most profound and fucked up experiences I've ever gone through and I'm still dealing with the fallout (not helped by him still being in hospital and me going for days at a time unsure of whether he is alive or dead). I fell in love with someone who was eight years older than I and, on the surface, a lot more grown up than me. But he still had this vague notion of wanting to be a Lord Bryon or Dylan Thomas figure, believing the illusion that giving in to darkness rather than searching out the light is a glamorous lifestyle choice and not just really fucking depressing. (Here I point you towards someone else who was in love with the romantic notion of destruction and Byron and the like: Peter Doherty. The sweaty moon faced crack addict of your dreams. Or nightmares, depending on your levels of sanity). Watching someone refuse to make choices, refuse to take responsibility, refuse to be an adult and take all that to it's inevitable conclusion was heartbreaking. I know for certain I don't want that for myself or for anyone else (but I also now know I can't make that decision on anyone else's behalf).

So, here's the thing: I think I now understand the formula of growing up; you learn how to be you. First and foremost, that's the crucial part of the recipe. The bit that makes you able to take the next few hundred thousand steps. Without it you bimble along in this world that doesn't really exist. A world where you lie to yourself and accept the lies that others tell you. You take the red pill, take a bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge**, shake off illusion and embrace reality and everything that entails. You finally learn that 'there is no spoon' (there is no spoon) and that frees you, completely and one hundred per cent to just be you - accepting the awesome and horrible parts of yourself, learning that they are pretty much one and the same thing (because they are what makes you, you), and being ok with that (something no-one will ever really tell you but you really must believe - you being you is ok. It is enough. No-one should demand anything more of you than for you to be the most 'you' version of yourself that you can possibly manage. You are perfect. You are imperfect. It is enough). The next bit is harder and more of a slog because once you've realised you're Neo and can save the world and destroy God, you actually have to go off and save the world and destroy God. Which is effort. To put it into real world terms it's like me going 'that painting I was going to do would be really awesome if I painted it' but then just sitting down and twiddling my thumbs instead. Knowing that I am capable of painting awesomely andactually doing an awesome painting are very different things.

And I think that's where I am now; looking at the ingredients, looking at the recipe, and trying to find the strength and the energy to pull it all together. I've had so many revelations through going to therapy that have clicked so many things into place that I just can't see myself making the same mistakes again, which is good. I just don't feel good yet. And that's the one thing I wish I knew how to get back.


*I don't mean 'above' in an arrogant way, though around the time I was going through all this 'breaking open the world and seeing the light' shit when my best friend came out and showed me how easy it was to live without fear controlling you, it was arrogance I felt. I felt I'd been given a key to a secret kingdom and only a select few of us were brave or clever or special enough to enter. Most others chose to stay on the ground and I was living in the clouds, observing and shaking my head at how stupid it all seemed. The petty lives people lead when they weren't being honest or true to themselves. I knew better, I was above all that. I'd taken the red pill, everyone else had chosen the blue pill and had an easier but less fulfilling time for it. The arrogance on this occasion is absent, maybe because it's another persona that just didn't work for me. Maybe because it's a trait associated with youth and I don't feel like a kid anymore. Maybe, in this instance, I just have nothing to feel arrogant about.

** No-one has ever explained to me why God would want to keep you wrapped in cocoon of illusion. It seems to me that Eve had the right idea, rather than damn humanity she saved us. But then girls becoming women and realising their own power has always, and probably will always, be construed as a dangerous thing.

Empty

You're sat there, in an all-you-can-eat restaurant looking around at your family, or the family you've known since you were 13, all because your mother happened to start dating a man who was chubby with a beard and came equipped with four children of his own. Four children who turned your world upside down, who made you a stranger in your own house, who made the experience of growing up even harder than it already had been.

Not that teenage years are easy for anyone; the awkwardness in your own body - the way it bends and twists differently than before and doesn't sit right on your frame; the isolation - the feeling that no-one has ever felt the things that you do, has never thought the thoughts that you have (though of course they do and of course they have; you just don't realise that till much, much later); the hormone surges; the unknowingness of life, of yourself... it all combines so that no matter where you sit on the social scale, teenage years are hard. No matter the state of your family life, teenage years are hard. No matter how comfortable you are with yourself, teenage years are hard.

For one thing, it's unjust. Adults win continuously just because they are adults. The unfair things that teachers say to you have to be accepted because they are your teachers. The unfair things your parents say to you have to be accepted because they are your parents. You are not allowed to fight for yourself because you are a child and they are the adults and they know best (they do not know best). Rebellion doesn't run through your blood like it does for others. You bide your time and hope that it gets better.

You carry around an anger for many years that things were made harder than they needed to be. You learn not to reveal emotion - it was something that came naturally anyway but you honed that instinct and made it a part of you. You remember back in the distant past your father screaming at you to stop crying and when you claim to him that you can't just stop crying he loses all respect for you in that moment, (you both know it but don't acknowledge it) because of course you can. Even though you are seven.

You learned a lot that day.

You now don't reveal much of yourself to people. Your closest friends don't know half the thoughts that run through your head. You do your best to disguise your pain in front of them. You are there to make other people feel better, that's the role you've assigned yourself; the one who gets told the secrets, not the one who reveals them. You wonder if you've isolated yourself too much. There was a time when it seemed honesty was the only way forward but the words get stuck in your throat these days. They sit behind your tongue, they formulate at night and invade your dreams, but when it comes to letting them out during daylight hours they get caught and stay trapped within you. They weigh you down, make it harder to breathe, make it harder to fly. You remember a time when those things were second nature, a time when you had managed to burn off what wasn't working. But you have found yourself laden with baggage again. The one thing you hadn't wanted to happen.

You try and tell people how you feel, try and not become sulky. They hear you but they do nothing or they don't hear you and pretend there is no problem - I haven't noticed you being a bitch they say. They are lying. (Or just so adept at pretending it's become second nature to ignore problems). You want someone to sit there and beat the truth out of you. You know that's the only way the words will start spilling out; you've got too much control over the words to let them tumble from your lips of their own accord. You sit with your feet tucked under a cushion, your arms wrapped around your knees, on a sofa with the boy who was supposed to be simple and uncomplicated and make you feel better and he makes you feel worse. The antidote to the messy and serious situation you were just in is not having the desired effect. What now? You calmly explain in what manner he has hurt you with no malice attached (but perhaps heavy with sarcasm). You unfurl yourself from the sofa and sit in a chair on the other side of the room and slowly zip up your boots. You pick up your coat and push your arms through the sleeves one at a time. You tuck your hair into your hat in that way that makes it look like you've been preening in front of the mirror for hours to get it just so but seems to just happen naturally. I'll text you tomorrow he says I am sorry for being a twat. You mutter indecipherable words under your breath as you pull the front door shut. Standing up for yourself was supposed to feel more empowering than this.

You just feel empty.

And then a day later you're sat there, in an all-you-can-eat restaurant looking around at your family, or the family you've known since you were 13, and you realise the anger you've been carrying around for years has gone. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. Other events have occurred that have taught you what is important and what isn't and this particular anger just isn't. Losing this anger was supposed to feel more empowering than this.

You just feel empty.