What is it like to have a broken mind?

 

I can only tell you what it’s like to have my broken one – I can’t tell you what it’s like in someone else’s. Our minds break in different ways – they crack in places so personal to ourselves that I would never presume to know what is happening inside other minds.

I think I can say, with certainty that we are all survivors. Every day is a day that we might, at some point have never believed we would make it to. We might have wished those days away, we might have wished ourselves erased from them, included in them. We may have tried to forget them, relive them, deny them; hate them, love them. Sometimes we have only just made it through them.

A small boy knocked two large bottles of cheese and tomato pasta sauce off a shelf at work today. He was so upset, bless him! I gave him lots of cuddles so he felt better and then cleared it up. It bloody stunk, especially that early in the morning. It took ages to clear up. Now I feel I have repaid karma for that time years ago when my son Dominic puked three times at the checkout at Asda one Christmas. I was never one for cheesey-pasta sauces though, at any time. They smell and look sort of heavy. I am not much of a one for cooked cheese. Cheese and pickle sandwich, oh yes! Melted things, not so much.

I won’t go into detail about some of the things I have been through. You can safely assume that I have Been Through Some Stuff. The first ‘relationship’ I even had. If I told you about what happened there, you would be left not knowing what the fuck to say and I don’t want that – I would rather we just talked about the weather, poems, anything. I do not want you to look at me with sympathetic eyes while secretly wondering how quickly you can get away. It has left me continuously seeking out dangerous and hurtful situations. You never ask – it is up to the individual how much they want to tell and when. Me, I worry that the more people know, the more they will change in the way they relate to you. I get a chance, when I first meet someone, to have a go at being normal. (Whatever that is – again, we all have our own views on that). I get to have a time of being undamaged. I don’t make mistakes. I nod politely and interestedly at conversations. Smile.

see me smiling I am smiling I am see me smiling I am smiling see me smiling me I am see me see me smiling

I know that I am going to unable to put all this down in a logical order, though I will try. My life has been a mixture of extremes, of either utter horror or idyll. I have never experienced balance – I have no knowledge of what this might be, or how to live with it now. I am a woman of extremes.

It takes a while for the crazy to leak from the cracks. And leak it does. Some days, I am buttoned down like a Victorian collar – other times I am sitting there opening emotional veins all over social media where all the world (or at least the people on my friend list) can read it all for themselves.

The tannoy at work keeps calling for the in-store cleaner - fair enough most days, but today, the one on duty is a lovely man who happens to be deaf. So they call him over the tannoy. I have taken to going to where I know he is and fetching him. Then explaining to the people on the tannoy that they might have to remember that he cannot hear them. I get irritated, they stare at me blankly. A short time after, they tannoy him again. I find him in the canteen, having his break. I am about to go off it again, when another lovely member of staff picked up the in-store phone and told them that they could clean up their own bloody mess, as A - he is on his break and B - you are calling him on the tannoy again???? So I am very glad there is someone else there who wants to help him too. He is lovely and I am glad to have made another ace friend.

It is a little bit like drinking way too much the night before and regretting it, come the morning. You feel all sorts of embarrassed. Or you don’t care at all. Not a fig. You wonder how many people read it and rolled their eyes, thinking there she is, off on another one. They probably think you are an attention seeking whinger who is making it all up to get some sympathy. Admitting you have mental health issues it’s all the rage, nowadays, isn’t it? To have this, or that? Have we all thought that at one time or another? Maybe. Maybe not.

I have always been ‘different’. I spend a lot of time trawling back through my childhood, looking for the first time I became conscious of this. The answer to this is always. Always. Was it nature or nurture? Or a combination of both? The circumstances in which you grew up go a long way to shaping you. I wonder, though – if I had grown up with another family, would I still have been the same? Can you fight your genetic history? If I had been a queen or a leaf on a tree, would I have worked out the same? Are you destined to become your ancestors?

There is a current obsession round here with broth mix. The mention of broth gets people of a certain age very excited, I have noticed. This broth always involves bacon joints. I love it when people link arms with me on the way to the pulses and tell me their recipes. It makes me happy. 

I have always had a very difficult relationship with my mother. I try really, really hard not be envious when I see mothers and daughters together, laughing, shopping, chatting, walking. Having an actual relationship. I used to think I was a changeling – if we did not look so damn similar, I could have kept believing this, so different are we in nature. My family, and her will tell you that I am a liar. That I make it all up. I tried – I really did, for so many years but one day, it just became too much. It was cruelty, argument and stress I could live without.

I was talking to Laura-with-the-blond-hair who comes in and does the education at work. The chat began about the evils of surviving January, money-wise, and ended up with us both admitting we have bought second hand Christmas presents for our children when we have had to – especially expensive electrical items. I feel no shame in that and nor should anyone. People cannot live on minimum wage, no matter how hard they try. We are all just trying to do our best. I still sew a soft toy for my son every year. There is this rumour I heard when I was in the warehouse today. That people are having to go in the bins behind the Iceland for food when it has closed. So much sadness in my heart, hearing this. What has happened to the world?

When I was eighteen my parents went to try and live abroad with my younger brother and sister. Me and my elder brother absolutely refused to go. This caused a lot of rows and upset, but it felt like blessed relief. Unfortunately it went badly wrong and my mum ended up getting a plane home with my sister. Things had happened between her and my father which seemed unrepairable. Of course this was awful – my mum took to her bed and would not get up, would not communicate, would not function. My brother and I had jobs after our college – me in a bar, him in a nightclub and we did our best to support things, taking my sister to and from school, doing our best to look after her, the house. I remember our first Christmas – I remember bringing a Christmas tree home on the bus from Barnsley. One time mum asked me outright from her bed – after all he had done, did I hate my father? I found that I did not. I did not like what he had done, or she had done or what had happened. But I did not hate him.

I do not hate him now she hates me hates him did not hate him hate me her hate I do not hate him now she

She looked at me with such an expression of dislike. There were times in my life when he had been a lifeline, a small, secret ray on sunshine – he had had an understanding of all the things that were wrong with my family. From that moment on, she hated me openly and the rest of the years since have felt like a very long, very cold served revenge.

I have this theory that there are these invisible balls of grief that we share among us. They are the size of boiled eggs and very similar to swallow. Just enough to uncomfortably stretch your throat but not block it – and leave that pain after, like you ate something that was that bit too big for your gullet. They don’t sink to your stomach – they lodge in your sternum as if they were stones under mattresses – you feel them when you bend, when you breathe, when you walk around. Eventually they dissolve, and are passed out as an uncomfortable dream on time when you fall asleep on the sofa. They reform and float off to find another victim. But they do come back, as homing pigeons do. Or salmon, swimming back to where they were born.

Yes it hurts every single day that they have no interest in my son, that they have not seen him for about six years, maybe even more. When I see grandparents with their grandchildren it is more pain than I think I can bear. But my child will only go where he is loved and treasured, not resented for who he is, because of who his parents are. He will never know this. I would bear anything to spare him any thought that where he ought to be wanted, he is not. The pain for me is as fresh as it was all those years ago. I have failed to make a normal family for him, though I tried so very hard.

hates me hate her mum hates me hate her mum hates me hate me her hates mum me hates me hate me mum hates

Gracious to Betsy, but Holbein was some painter. It is so amazing to see what the people actually looked like! It was like a gift from the heavens – that ability to paint like that! Silks that are so real you hear the rustle, jewels like you could pluck them from the side of hoods and hems – cheeks so photo-really done, you could rest your own against them and feel their pallor. In the backgrounds and as part of the clothes – tapestries and fabrics – someone wove them with real fingers, then he painted what they made. I am painting damask because I can! That hidden elliptical skull! I would like the magical power of being able to climb into the paintings and be part of them for a while. Or travel through them like portals. A bit like a Tudor-artisan Harry Potter. The layers of meaning! The H H on each side of his head in his self-portrait! The lady with the bird at her shoulder! His portrait of his wife.

I do not deny that they helped me with money, but this help was a tie. The help left you open to all the criticism and comments – sometimes I used to feel my mother was buying permission to hurt me – if I wanted the money, then I was to sit there and take the outpourings of bile about my weight, my career choices, my boyfriends. I used to ring of from these three hour long conversations with my brain actually boiling with fury and hurt. I cannot go on and on about the content of these calls or the childhoods I shared with my siblings. This is a whole other novel in itself.

It’s a stage you are going to grow out of. It’s just moods. You drink, you smoke, your party your way through your twenties with this voice – this constant voice in your head. Square peg! Round hole! Square peg! Round hole! You don’t quite understand your friends and their relationship with their families. You feel somehow, less than them in everything. Your childhood stories are never the same. You feel constantly embarrassed by who you are and where you come from. I don’t mean where you come from as in working class, middle class. I mean where you come from. You have nothing in common with anyone, not really.

The last two nights I have had odd dreams. I am not one of life’s dreamers – I never usually remember them, nor talk about them or try to analyse them. I know we all have them – I just never usually recall any. Friday night it was a slim woman with a pre-raphelite tumble of red hair, telling me, ‘You would live a better life if you were vegetarian.’ That’s the only bit I remember. Then last night it was endless old man faces with white hair and staring eyes – a bit like zombie Einsteins coming at me left, right and centre.

weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo weirdo

Men. All those men and all the time you only ever wanted to be held. You are a rag doll, to be tossed about – you are a punch bag, you are tainted. You are not the sort of girl they take home to mum. You are common as muck. You are a guilty secret, you are not good enough. You are someone to fuck. But for a moment! Somebody’s arms. Somebody’s eyes, looking, even for a moment like they want you, somebody’s breath, somebody’s sighs. Time and time again I sold myself for this. Sometimes, I even wanted them to hurt me. Sometimes I hurt them. It is something you pass around, like a spliff or a beach ball, this hurt and hate.

As life opened out, with moving towns, going to university, living on my own in a shared house with strangers I began to feel as if I was an elephant in a room full of wisps. Everyone was beautiful, mysterious, fashionable, individual. Hair, eyeshadow, hippie skirts, bare middles, exquisite little breasts. And then, me – honestly, I had not even eaten a courgette until I was nineteen. I arrived with a suitcase full of a scrabble of bits, bad hair and a layer of puppy fat.

You fat pig you fat ugly pig you fat pig you fat ugly pig you fat pig you ugly pig fat pig fat fat ugly pig

I have this thing where I can’t seem to stop watching Rick Stein. At the moment he is cooking a curry with meat. Fair enough, one might say. Except he goes on to put cinnamon sticks in it. Thus our views diverge, and I consider my problem with mixing groups of foodstuffs. For example, meat and cinnamon. Apple pie and cinnamon yes. Meat, no. Ditto gammon and pineapple, sweet and sour with pineapple, curry and raisins, coronation sauce and raisins. Why? Why, why? When I put the balsamic vinegar on the shelves at work, it says, great with salad – or strawberries! And I feel an irrational crossness. This brings me on to alcohol and drinks – tea and coffee with whisky/brandy etc. Just stop it, will you! Vanilla, Hazlenut, chocamocha etc. No! Just give me the coffe, please. Chocolate liqueurs – no, no. Chocolate, oh yes. Liquers, oh yes. But this persistence with the mixing of everything together! Lemon in savoury foods – uuurgles. Mmmmmmm, stir fry…..ack! Who put the lemon meringue in? Too much ginger. Too much ground clove. I like to think I would be a natural fit in Tudor times, but my reluctance to involve a lot of cloves might be a bit of a deal breaker. Cardamom pods. Biting on one of these if the fastest way to ruin a nice experience. Having one of those go off in your mouth! Sherry trifle is excluded from the above, because it just is.

Starving myself was easy – it only took a handful of weeks to get used to the hunger pains. The weight fell off! It was such a joy – after a couple of months I had it to a fine art – water, water, coffee, coffee, cigarettes, cigarettes. At the end of the day, a calorie counted M&S sandwich (Coronation Chicken, two hundred and something calories, if I remember rightly). I was so thin! Everyting, everything fitted! At my worst, I would sit down and the bones of my arse would bruise the skin. You could see all my ribs. If I did crack, every now and then – vomit. Simple as that. No need for a bra. What a feeling, to punish myself like this! I danced, and danced at nightclubs, stayed out all night at parties.

I dance I dance see how I dance I am dancing see how I dance dancing I am dancing dance see how me I dance I

The dogs have chewed up an actual bucket on the back patio.

In the middle of this, a horrific break up with my first real, proper boyfriend. I met him in my second year at uni, and we were together for six and a half years. We broke up once, patched things up. The half year matters. Stupid things like that end up mattering. A whole other six months before it was over. He met someone else and I got my marching orders. All through your student life, you move from place to place, flat to flat. I have lost count of how many times I have put my meagre trappings into bin bags and moved on. I like to think there are little pieces of my life, slipped unknowing under carpet edges, down the back of kitchen cabinets – gig tickets, nightclub flyers, buttons, lipstick, hair. Maybe if enough of it was collected, it could make a me, all over again.

When you take the road through Crawcrook and past the turn off for Clara Vale, you cannot help looking at the splendid view opening out before you. On the toppermost crown of the hill is a large copse of trees, and poking out from them is some large white manor hours or somesuch. It has two huge chimneys standing large and proud. It looks for all the world like a cruise liner which has accidentally sailed there and is stuck like a Marie Celeste. If I ever get near enough to discover that it is actually a house I will be disappointed.

I have always had this urge, this utterly driving urge to make things, draw things, write things. I have to be putting something down all the time – there is always some idea, something I want to say, some question I want to answer. I am afraid of idleness. I cannot do it. I have this fear of what would actually fill my mind if I did stop – as if I can keep this particular monster at bay by simply refusing to make room for it, to deny it its right to speak. So I had this workshop, where I made jewellery. Not a big, booming business, but it was mine. Something I set up all by myself, with nothing much but my will to succeed and again, a story for another time. To cut it short, when my boyfriend wanted me out, I was broke in mind and in money. I had nowhere to go. I was homeless.

I notice as I drive that most of the potholes that have been filled in over the while have lost their repairs. It’s like the old tarmac does not like the new tarmac - like they changed the recipe, or something. Or the wound rejects the new flesh, or mouths that do not want to be filled, possibly.

What an upsetting and shameful experience I found that to be. At least I had my workshop – this one room upstairs, divided in two by a counter. I lived there, with this little roll-up camping mattress. I had a sinkwith cold running water, I had a kettle, I had a toilet and in that way I was lucky – some people do not have the luxury of that. I hand washed my clothes and waited days for them to drip dry. The months of being there were so hard – I was afraid the people I rented the place from would find out and make me leave. I kept myself going with a very tightly controlled routine – it got me through the days. Up at seven, boil the kettle for washing. Roll up mattress, tidy away. Spend the day running my little jewellery business. Close at 6pm, then walk to the Co-op next door and buy a sandwich and a packet of crisps. Go back, lock the doors – I had a little portable television and after closing the curtains on the windows, I would watch that, or read, or exercise. Or sit and ponder how I had come to this.

failure what a failure complete and utter failure complete utter failure what a failure complete utter

As I passed along the roads to Stamfordham I enjoyed looking at the moss covered dry stone walls – in the weak but welcome sunshine they were a burst of colour, all lime and sand. It reminded me of when I was a child – I would carefully peel off swathes of it, like miniature turf and use it to make tableaus with my Britain’s Farm horses and farm animals. Happy times. The grass still has that wishy-washy, not quite green appearance. It has that scudding of dead yellow on the top.

It was about this time that I developed my fear of windows. Working out ways of not being seen was very important for my survival. During the day, you could walk past them willy-nilly as you pleased – at night, you had to pretend you were not there, had to duck and crawl on your hands and knees beneath the low sills to avoided showing your silhouette to suspicious eyes. This has stayed with me ever since.

In my thirties, I became sick of who I was in my twenties. Everything that was important then, seemed stupid now. I did not want to be the me I was – but who then was I going to be? I have often compared myself to Worzel Gummidge – remember him? He used to swap his heads depending on who he wanted to be that day. Shaping who you are to fit your environments – think Mr Benn, going through his magic door and coming out as someone else entirely. Which personality are you trying on today, dear?

I decided that I had had enough of the circle of friends I was with. I could not forget that when I really needed them, absolutely needed them, not a single one of them would actually help me. It hurt so much, because I would have stepped in and helped every one of them, without question. I had some tough lessons to learn about what constitutes a ‘friend’. Fuck them. FUCK them. This is how angry about them I still am. I am the Great Unforgiven.

Listening to the holey, rusty upright on a metal five bar gate – the wind went right inside it, and made these musical, almost clarinet-ish, oboe-ish humming notes. It sounded like how pylons would talk, if they could. Maybe they do. There was quite a symphony going on – I listened until the cold gusts cut too deep into the top of my head. I was wearing one of those fleecy headband things that cover the ears but have no top. Someone bought it for the kids two years ago for Christmas but they won’t wear it. I feel quite the swank, with my stubby ponytail poking over the top like I’m on Ski Sunday.

I no longer had the physical or emotional strength to carry on with my business – trying to keep it going alone had used up every bit of strength that I had. I admitted defeat, hung up my pliers and got myself a job. Got somewhere to live. Reinvented myself again. This time I was woman living alone, out and about on the town. I was happy enough, though I was always struggling financially. I stumbled through other relationships and saw them all end in disaster. I discovered how lonely Sundays could be. I discovered what it was like to have a ‘bad neighbour’. There was this man on our little street who made everyone’s lives a misery, including mine. A nasty, violent man who had no problem terrorising women who lived alone.

I saw a baby gannet on the telly – it was black, with these silvery speckles and reminded me of this pair of rabbits I had when I was a kid. They were called Cinders and Velvet – I don’t know what the gannet was called.

Again, I do not need to go on and on about the problems therein. Just assume it was as shit as it was. My window fear rose to the fore again – him and his rotten family were forever peeping in. You could hear them, yakking on as they walked up and down outside. I took to staying away from glass. I did not want to be seen – if I had to go outside, I would stand behind my locked front door, holding my breath, straining my ears for sounds of movement outside, desperately trying to stump up the courage to leave the security of the house. My heart would hammer, my head would swim – my skin would sweat, my brain would leap into hyperdrive. The house became a trap as much as it was my only safe place.

Blacksmith today for the horses. He is quite a character. He squints in this way of squishing at you where it makes it seem all his features are concentrated in the centre four inches of his face. He always tells you he will be dead in fifteen years. Perhaps he has some sort of secret oracle stone at home or something. Mind, he has been saying the same thing the decade I have known him. I love the way he is such a straight talker – he calls a pitchfork a pitchfork. Makes me thing of the few people I have in my life that are pure straight talkers. You sort of need them. My friend Val up at the other stableyard is another. I saw her yesterday, and it is good to talk to people who don’t mince their words. I hate seeing her poor fingers though – every time I see them, it makes me want to cry. I worry about her and her husband, and who is going to take care of them when they are old. If she needs me, then of course, of course I will. I have a feeling she does intrinsically know. We are both women of few words, when it comes to stuff like this.

I would put my hand on the handle, turn the key so slowly…slowly (as if that dreadful man could hear it moving inside the lock), heart in my mouth, ears straining like a rabbit that knows there is a hawk somewhere nearby.

he is coming he is coming he is coming is he coming is coming he is coming is coming is he is he is he coming

I had this leaving the house down to a fine art. If I assumed the coast was clear, continue unlocking. Take the key out, open the door just enough to remove the key from the inside and slide it quietly into the outside keyhole. Breathe, breathe, listen. Okay. Out of the door like a greyhound out of the trap, in one swift movement, lock the door, take out the key and run! Run round the back of the houses, hit the road, cross it, hit the footpath. Walk quickly until you feel you have walked enough away. Slow down, realise your breath is whistling. Safe, safe for another few hours.

I have been painting a halo today. On top of the gold, I painted red patterns, then gold again on top of that.

Coming back home was more tricky, because I could not see round the corner, could not tell if I was going to bump straight into him or not. I had to dig my nails into my palms and screw up the sheer courage to go for it, unlock the door with as little shaky fumbling as possible, get myself in! Often I would come back to my fence having been vandalised or burned, or graffiti, or shit on my doorstep.

Today, my son wrote an acrostic poem at school. Do I really need anything else in my day? He also gave me a lollipop – admittedly, he licked it and decided he did not want it, but still…

Of course a body cannot keep up this extreme level of stress without some ill effect. I began experiencing blackouts. They would happen during the times between when I was gearing up to leave the house or return to it. I would come to, and be down on my knees. It was as scary as hell. I began to fantasise about how easy it would be to throw myself onto the Metro line, in front of a train. The inside of my head was a butchered carcass. I wanted to die, but I did not want to die enough. I am so stubborn. I seem to have this ability to just keep going. I had no-one I felt I could talk to about this. Life, at this particular point, was a crock of shit.

I was still working throughout all of this. I do not know how – I was rake thin – my hair, fine at the best of times had fallen out in handfuls. I was drinking way, way more than I should. My bosses were big drinkers too – the times we used to close up shop, crack open wine, stagger off to the pub were countless, and it kept me away from that house. I would go round to other people’s houses with bottles of gin. I got stoned. I smoked like a chimney. My physical health must have been at absolute rockbottom, but in a sad indictment on society, I could pull any man, any time. They thought I was beautiful. Me and my stiletto ankle boots. I have had a twenty-three inch waist. That is probably the circumference of one of my thighs now.

I left work in the dark – I leave my car in the top car park as it feels like I am getting away quicker. Anyway, it was snowing – the flakes were swirling like white flies in the lamppost beams. It was lovely. Everyone asks, ‘is it settling?’

 I met my husband when I was twenty nine. We had a couple of dates. He was so different from any of the other ‘hipsters’ I had been out with in the past. I did not care about being fashionable any more. I did not care about fitting in. One time I told him that my fence had been burned and vandalised. When I came back from work later that day, there he was, fixing it for me. I was so grateful. It had been so long, so very long since anyone had done anything so selflessly nice for me. He felt like a hero, like he was the answer to all my prayers. Here was someone who was strong enough, or so I thought, to make it all go away. I decided there and then that when he asked me to marry him, I would be saying yes. Twelve years later he is calling me  Vicious Cow and I fantasise about lottery wins and ways of escape. How did we Come To This?

I am saved I am saved I am saved saved am saved am I am saved I saved am saved I am saved am saved am saved

I am being permanently moved onto the checkouts at work. No-one bothered telling me – I just disappeared from one rota and appeared on another. I will be grateful for the relief for my poor knees, which seem to get worse by the day. Cold, tiled floors are doing them no good. Sometimes I feel both body and mind are slipping away, moving on somewhere else without me. I am happy, but also all at sixes and sevens. I have made some lovely friends on grocery and will miss them. Seems like I have just worn out some comfortable corners in one job, and now have to be the New Girl all over again. Though not quite so bad, I guess, having worked on checkouts a lot since I started. That, and having purple hair – people seem to know who I am. I wonder if it will be better – or will it be a case of being careful what you wish for?

We married when I was thirty and my son was born when I was thirty one. He was not planned – I had never thought that I would have children. I had decided that I would rather sacrifice the chance to have a family than take the risk of Becoming My Mother. I have always had this secret fear that She Is In There. Was I born to be the same? Was it in my make up? Or did I swallow so much of it growing up that I never really knew if it was my destiny or not?

For the first six months of my pregnancy, I felt ok and I looked fine – I did not bother buying maternity clothes, just a bigger size, a fourteen. A fourteen? A bigger size? How I make myself smile when I think of how I would give one of my lungs to be a size fourteen now!

You have a busy day – then come home from one job, start the backlog of others. Stop and settle. Switch the goggly-box on, some obscure satellite channel. Oh yes, Cold Comfort Farm is playing and I have only missed twelve minutes. Some days, there Is A God. Someone is brushing the forehead of a Hereford bull. Robert Poste’s child…

It was shortly after that, however, that I began to feel Not Quite So Well. My body began filling up with fluid. I was hot. My joints hurt. I did not want to move. Everything felt big and slow. Almost overnight, I was huge. None of my rings fitted. My stomach pulled with pain if I tried to lie on my side. My face became flat like someone had hit me in the face with a pan lid. Shoes no longer fitted and neither did the baggiest slippers. My feet were sore balloons. I was a monster. High temperatures and soreness led to a diagnosis of mastitis, even though I had not given birth. Just that word – mastitis- made me feel even more bovine, hoggish, animal than I already felt.

pig cow moo oink piggy pig fat bitch fat cow moo cow fat piggy bitch moo moo oink fat sow fat tits pig fat

In the winter, it seems to get dark very quickly. Not pitch-dark, but too dark to dig the garden. Not that I intended on digging the garden, but there is no harm in entertaining a little fantasy, here and there. I made the fool decision to plant apple mint last summer in my border thing – come October I was yanking it out by the armful. I wanted it to grow respectfully and calmly in one place and look decorative, not engulf all my decorative bits of rusty crap and shells. My borage vanished and died, and so did some hollyhocks. Mint is murder.

My blood pressure was sky high and a huge cause for concern. It was measured once a week and she would test my urine and wonder did I have pre-eclampsia? No, there is no protein in your wee. Therefore you cannot have it. I had those little glitter stars in front of my eyes all the time. I felt like any moment now, I was going to explode. Two weeks before my due date I was too ill to get up to see the midwife at the doctors. When she eventually came over to see me, she blanched, did another protein test, shat bricks and sent me to straight to hospital. Turns out I did have it. Pre-eclampsia, that is. If only I had pissed out protein at the right time to coincide with a test, I might have been treated sooner and ended up in less of a mess. That’s my body for you. The living personification of fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.

My son – when I am not with him, I miss him like it’s a pain. I crave him. It’s always there, in the same way that breathing, or blinking is; just sometimes, it comes on more strongly, in a rush. I have to stop, still – what is he doing? Thinking? Then the ache. I keep pondering how watching your child grow up is all sorts of happy and sad all at once. Happy that they are with you, that they are alright – happy that they are growing, sad that they are growing. Happy that they have survived all of life’s ages and experiences thus far, sad that they will never be that age again. People muse on which age is the most difficult and I say all of them! There is no time when it is easier – it is just…different. Celebration and grieving all at once. When we are not together, I feel as if someone has lopped off my best and favourite branch. Am I healthy in this? Something else to worry about. There is a long list – more of a scroll – sort of like a carpet in a warehouse. They are moving away from you, inch by inch. Some days you don’t notice at all – some days it feels they leapt a whole life sideways.

I was wired up to monitors in the morning and told to wait for the surgical team and expect a c-section. At around 5pm a woman doctor asked what was I doing here? I did not need a c-section. So she cancelled it. At two in the morning a consultant came to see me and confessed surprise that I was there. I explained that the other doctor had cancelled it. He got cross and said that the surgical team had been sent home as nothing was scheduled for them. He apologised and they made me as comfortable as they could. All this time I had been alone as my husband had had to go to work. It was the twenty third of December. Life was about to get a whole lot shitter. I sniffled into my RVI pillow, monitors blipping and felt utterly by myself.

At eight a.m., a nurse popped in to breezily inform me that someone was coming right now to break my waters. I had a bit of a wobble, which went along the lines of I am on my own! A male doctor appeared with what looked like a crochet hook. My second wobble went along the lines of but that is a man! For some reason, I had been under the wrong assumption that everyone who had anything to do with birthing these ‘ere babbies was a woman. With no-one to hold my hand, I laid back and let a strange man poke a stick right up there and burst my baby’s bubble.

Where the tins of sweetcorn are in the shop, I smell a wonderful, cardboard smell. Sweet, and very drying to the nostrils. Why this should be concentrated by the sweetcorn, I do not know, but it is very pleasant and makes me want to eat the stuff.

My family did come up – I had asked my mum to be there for the birth. I thought that this would be some miracle cure for us – that there would be this unspoken bonding, something that we had finally shared. I had such high hopes. No wonder I was so disappointed.

Let’s skip the birth – for those who have not given it yet, you will discover the wonders of it for yourself and I do not want to put you off – yours might be ok – one of those one hour labour, in and out and they slept through the night from the get-go ones. For those that already have, it is very messy, very difficult and very painful. It involved these sort of metal, leg-clampy things that looked like they had come from a Museum of Victorian Torture which enabled me to have a few horrible internals. The epidural had been incorrectly administered and was not working. They offered me a spinal tap but I did not like the sound of that. Which reminds me – I still have never seen that film. Our heat beats went up and down. Everyone did a fair amount of panicking. And yes, I did poo myself. From the minute that sperm enters the egg, you have lost all your dignity. You have had a men and women exploring every single orifice, and not in a nice way.

To cut a long story short, Dominic was born at ten past one in the morning, Christmas eve. I must just add how nice the nurses were on Christmas day. When I woke up they had put two presents on my pillow – just simple things, a bath bomb for me, a dummy for Dominic.

I have such a yenning for Seahouses. Walking to that funny little brick hut, on the rocks up the beach – fish and chips at Pinnacles, there the clipping of the Hairy Bikers is framed on the wall. Mushy peas, strong tea in pots, bread and butter when you are windburnt from the beach. Dry old fish heads that bait the lobster pots. You have these little ambitions – I so would love to go on one of those boat-trips to the Farnes, see the puffins. It’s the money – it is always the money! The second to last time I drove up there with my son, we found this little knick-knacky giftshop that was sadly closing down. We bought a purple Frisbee and a yellow one, a puffin ornament and six little resin footballer teddies in various poses, three in red shirts, three in green. There is an ice cream parlour where you sit at the bar and have knicker-bocker-glories. It lets you imagine yourself back in the 1950’s. Staithes will do that to you, as will Sandsend.

He stopped breathing. He was whisked away. He was brought back. He had jaundice and was put between biliblankets and babygrows. No wonder the poor mite has never been able to develop a decent sleeping pattern. After a week they had to ask for my permission to remove them as there was a newborn whose bilirubin level was now higher than Dominic’s and they only had the one set, which had been donated by a kindly businessman. So he came off those. I made no milk – I tried and tried, sat on their bloody breast-pump until I was black and blue. I went to sleep and woke up to find that they had inserted a feeding tube in my baby’s nose. I felt bad that they had not told me this. I felt confused and weak. Maybe they had told me, maybe they had not. What kind of mam was I already that I would have to ask?

I had butter beans for tea. Like edible bits of nothing that taste of something undecipherable, with the texture of slightly dry, pulped paper. But I like them.

I so wanted to touch him – I did, and I disturbed the tube, had to call them. I was like a shipwreck. I was disgusting – had a catheter with a bag hanging from a stick on wheels for my wee. I had another permanently taped to my hand for the endless bloods. At the end of the first week I developed an ear infection. In that ward, surrounded by people – they all went home, I stayed, more people came in – I started to cry and I could not stop. I cried and cried and cried. They pulled the screen around me. I cried and cried. I could not stop.

I cried I cried no stop I cry I cannot stop cried I cried stop cry no I cannot cried cried I cannot cry

So for my good and the good of the ward, I was moved to a private room. The catheters were removed, so I at least did not have the awfulness of pulling my own piddle about with me, or having the one in my hand fall out with blood spurting all over the sheets.

Whiskers. Today, the pluck count is eleven. I always do it in the same place, by the kitchen window – light seems strongest there. I get the feeling it is the same for many people, who also spend a lot of time in this particular spot. A round, silver shaving mirror on a single stilt leg – I got it from IKEA. After, of course, testing it there by gurning my chin in it, this way and that to see if it was a good one or not. The light was good mind you, there in the sundries section. Eleven, on the side of my brand-new-fake Belfast sink like escaped hyphens. The most cunning of them hide right under my chin, where it meets the neck and grow to near two centimetres in length. I wish my actual head-hair grew with the same thick, fierce tenacity. It does not.

A little bit of peace and privacy for me and my new little boy. I felt like I had not had a chance to get to know him. I changed his nappies, I fed him, I put on little outfits. Studied his face, spent hours wondering who I could see there. I couldn’t sit up without the aid of a nylon ladder attached to the foot of the bed – it was like someone had cut me in the middle.

Two weeks later, they finally let me go. As I stepped into the fresh air, I thought that I had stepped onto an alien planet. Home was a stranger – I had become institutionalised. I had not had to think for myself for a while. I had this new baby but in there it had been fine, because all I had to do was ring for a nurse. Now I was alone.

what do I do I can do that what can I do can I do what what if I can what if I can’t what if what if I do

Ill health dogged me. I had an internal infection. I had polymorphic eruptions (best describes as volcanoes on your skin). I went up and down the stairs on my hands and knees. I was a hideous, rotting, bloated walking pustule. My baby cried and cried. I thought it best to join in with that. His reflux was akin to a fireman’s hose. He had colic. He never slept more than an hour at a time, including the nights. All the time I was alone. We did not have much money – my husband worked long, long hours. Life was a living hell.

I went to the local shopping precinct today and wandered aimlessly around, full of cold. There was nothing, nothing I wanted to buy, which is not like me and there are four charity shops. In the end, I had to content myself with a Lemony Snickett book for 10p, and an odd three-part dish thing that looks like it is from the ‘60’s. It has one handle, with the gold glaze worn off. It was £2.50. I’m lonely. I am lonely and this is why I buy shit I do not need. I need a cup of coffee.

Those women that come round your house and criticise everything you are doing – Health Visitors, I believe they are called – that have a lot to answer for. If you are lucky enough to have a nice one, brilliant. Mine used to ask me endless questions about how come I was doing this, how come I was doing that? Why was I sitting there, patting my baby like that? Why didn’t I put him down?  Did I ever put my baby down? I ought to get some rest. I got anxious about her going in the kitchen where the dining table was. I had built these towers of clean towels, clean clothes, baby bath, nappies, you name it – it was stacked on this huge table top. This was my System – it meant that I did not have to go upstairs until the end of the day. I could already tell that the visitors were trying to mark me down as mad.

I made too much food. I always make too much food. I don’t know who this invisible army is that I am cooking for. I have all these plates – they were wedding gifts – oval ones, round ones, bread plates, saucers. Tureens, platters, cups, mugs, soup dishes, small dishes. Just exactly what did I think my life was going to be? Crystal – wine, champagne, whisky tumblers, hi-balls. I don’t even know what a hi-ball is. Two decanters. Two. I must drink alcohol twice a year if I am lucky. When I walked around the department store with my wedding-list beepey gun, I must have thought I was off to occupy a stately home. I challenge anyone not to go mad with one of those things. Beep. Hand soap dispenser with miniature floating penguins. Beep. Four kinds of bath towel. Beep. Fake Regency chiming clock. Beep. Wall hanging of a ceremonial elephant. Actually – seeing all that written down, it sounded like a pretty good list. What happened to all that stuff? Setting the table with it all took about an hour. And never anyone to eat it. No wonder the dogs are fat. My big corner kitchen cupboard is a museum – it is a cavern of un-christened porcelain.

I began to branch out a little, started going out with Dominic in his buggy. Little pootles here and there, up the High Street for bits and bobs. I built myself up and then foolishly bit off more than I could chew. I went to Town. Walked from Central Station to the Quayside. As we trundled along, I remembered all the times I had had in the various bars and restaurants – I remembered who I had been there with, even what I had worn. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks – I did not know who I was anymore. I knew who I had been then. I would never be her again, would never look like her again, would never do what she did again. I did not know the person staring back at me from window panes. I did not belong here. My life had gone, absolutely gone, eternally and utterly changed in every way. I had not realised this until this very moment. I was a hole – a blank page. I was terrified. I wanted to go home. I was grief-stricken, as if I had died, yet of course I had not.

who the fuck is this who even are you who fuck you even you stranger utter stranger fuck you who even

I have three Russian Dolls. They look so sweetly content with all their babies tucked neatly inside themselves. I can hear a fair amount of cackling from the birds outside the dining room window. It must be time for the first sparrow brood in the central heating pipe hole.

I struggled on. A chasm was opening up between my husband and myself. He carried on with his life as if it was unchanged – mine was over, upside down, knocked sideways. I had had my lecture at the hospital about Keeping Everything Hygienic – how easy it was to Make Your Baby Ill Or Worse. It had scared the heck out of me. The words entered through the weakened membranes of my mind and lodged there. I had my sterilising stuff. I had my Milton, my bleach. And on top of that I had my boiling pan. Even the knife that I used to scrape a level scoop of powder was cooked within an inch of its life.

I saw mess everywhere. I actually believed I have the power to smell dust. I still do. I would walk into a room, narrow my eyes and sniff. There! I ran my fingers over everything. Pet hair became the bane of my life. You couldn’t get rid of the stuff with normal vacuuming – you had to get down on your knees and scrub at the mats and the sofa cushions with the nozzle. I did this until I wore callouses on my knees. I did it until I sweated.

My kitchen sink is not strictly brand new. It’s been in there for about nine months now, but still new in the scheme of things. A spider’s web of greyish cracks has developed, radiating out from the plughole. It doesn’t bother me – in fact, it is lending authenticity to my antique farmhouse fantasy.

I did not get better – I got worse. I could not take my eyes off Dominic for a moment in case anything happened to him. I was so convinced he was simply going to die. When he did eventually sleep, I would hover over him, hold my palm above his nose, convince myself that I could not feel breath. Then I would gently disturb him, until he sighed and moved. Then I knew for sure that he had not died in his sleep. I still do it, to this day. Nothing has ever managed to break me of this need. Between this constant watching, the poor physical health, the increasingly nasty arguments with my husband, the growing estrangement from my family and the crawling about on the floor looking for footmarks and filth, I was absolutely worn out. My poor dog - who by this time I had shared my life with for a good few years - did not recognise or trust me anymore. She even snapped at me on a number of occasions. The way I was must have really frightened me, though thankfully we did rebuild our relationship (and loved each other until her death at the age of sixteen).

One of my horses, Flynn (the cream-coloured one) always seems to be trying to tell me something. Like he is trying to physically will out some words. Maybe it is the fact that he has blue eyes – maybe it makes him seem like he is destined to become a Great Thinker. Maybe I am over-complicating things and he just wants you to keep petting his nose. They’re not daft, these animals. Out of all my animals, though, it is him that seems to be a reincarnation of somebody. He nearly died, a few weeks before I got him – just laid down and sort of gave up. It often feels as if I have him on borrowed time. The other two, Charlie and Orca are straightforward. Where is the food? We want to come in, now. We are scared of that. We are doing this now. Flynn is a hedgerow fairy – you can feel the metaphysics going on in his brain.

There were Episodes. Too many for me to ramble on and an about here. If I talk about one of them, it ought to give the reader a good idea of what they might have been like. I was working on a little sculpture, quite happily, though it was quite heavy going on my hands. Something went wrong with it and I found myself completely overtaken by anger and desperation. I was boiling, I was possessed. I smashed the sculpture on the kitchen floor, then picked up those pieces and smashed them some more. I picked up a large kitchen knife and pressed it along my arm. I remember screaming things, but I do not remember what they were. My husband left the house. I ran after him, crying and crying. Every day seemed as if no-one would listen to me unless I was bawling. He would not let me catch him up. It must have been like living with Beelzebub. No wonder, no wonder he hates me now.

kill myself kill myself I will I will the knife feels so cold why can’t you just fucking do it do it kill

Jackson, the stable cat is quite the killer. This is my problem with cats. Yes, I know, I know – it’s nature. But it is not very nice. He seems to have this fancy for pretty creatures – we are forever finding wrens, stoats and voles. Today, on the path, a blue tit’s wing, iridescent. I had this pleasant interlude a few years ago where I got really into feeding the wild birds – even down to buying different nuts and seeds for various birds. I made my own feeders from plastic milk bottles. I got all the usual garden varieties, but was thrilled to end up with six greenfinches – they would all come at once. A neighbours cat killed them all in one day. I really hated that cat and have never put feed out like that again. I felt wholly responsible for their deaths.

I scratched away the skin around my nails – I rubbed them together in obsessive click-click patterns. I still do this – wear my nails into crazy shapes, pick at them, pull them off.  I plucked loose hair from the poor dog as if she was a chicken. I became fixated with the oddest things – one of them was that I seemed to remember someone’s driveway, one hundred and fifty miles away, near where my parents lived. This driveway was an oddity – it was not block paved. It was a fake, it was as if someone had pressed the mark of brickwork into clay. I went on and on and on about the existence of this driveway. People looked at me funny. When I was seeing the psychologists, I went on and on about this driveway to them. My husband eventually drove there and I cannot enough express the relief I felt about my own sanity when I found out that yes! It was actually there. I had seen it. When I next conveyed this to the people at the clinic, they did not seem to find this as important as I did. I do not know why. I believe it is called Drivecrete. I fixated on other things too. I wanted to make a living doing market research surveys. I painted crackle glaze on every conceivable surface. It has been a bugger to get off.

You should never rush breakfast. Nor should you ever try to make an ambitious breakfast when you know you have very little time. And yet, I had spent the whole night thinking that I would have a tin of baked beans and sausages on a piece of toast. I think that this is called ‘beanie-weenies’ in the U.S. I could be wrong about that, though. I may have inadvertently made that up. Because you have been obsessing about eating such a thing, there would be no point in trying to pacify yourself with muesli, or bananas, or something. I knew I was in a hurry – we had a forty mile trip to get to a rugby match and I was flapping about making flasks and rooting about for gum-shields. I grabbed the tin opener and as I was yanking the lid open, I cut my finger right down to the bone. There was blood everywhere, but like a trooper, I wrapped a tea towel round it and carried on. Seven hours on, it is still bleeding and sore. There is no way I am going to A&E – I have to be at work early tomorrow and I just want to sit on my arse for a bit and do some writing.

So. When my son was about a year old, I went to the Doctor. I sat there trying to tell him that Something Was Not Right. He asked me a few questions. I answered some. He asked, I didn’t answer. We talked about my extreme cleaning. He said that he thought I had postnatal depression. He also said that I he thought I had Other Issues beyond that. One of them might be OCD. I already had depression before the PND, I had panic attacks, anxiety. He immediately gave me a prescription for Fluoxetine and told me to wait for a letter. When I got home, I googled what Fluoxetine was and discovered that one of its other names is Prozac. I thought, that’s it – I am Officially Mad. With a feeling that I had somehow failed, I opened my mouth, and popped the first one in.

Been up since half six and from the get-go, the day augered ill. I got the distinct feeling crows have been peering through the bedroom window. Crows are portentous, right? I have to try to do my hair. The road I usually take out of the village was closed this morning. There had been a huge crash – it is quite a dangerous road and there have been a few nasty incidents there of late. I keep thinking, I ought not to use this road – heaven knows, I have survived enough in this life to not want to die at the hands of some boy-racer. Then I thought about all the things I would miss – I would miss driving past the fields where the horses are, the farmhouse that has a worn old sign outside, advertising XMAS WREATHS all year round. I would miss the traffic lights where you pause on red and look at the trees on one side, absolutely festooned with bits of ratty plastic. It makes me think of prayer flags and I entertain myself guessing what the people who put them there are praying for.

A few days later, a letter arrived asking me to go and see a psychiatric nurse. Was I coping? Was I a danger to myself? We Discussed Hospital. I admit for a moment I was tempted – would it be just me in a light room, just resting? Resting? I pictured myself lying in a cool bed, with birdsong coming in at the open window while I took a lot of naps. I asked who would be looking after my son? Of course I would not be Going Anywhere. I would not be going there. I could not even conceive being separated from him – it was hard enough craving to be with him for the duration of these meetings. I had three appointments with her and she felt that she would refer me again to the nearest psychology unit.

I spent almost three years going to weekly appointments at this place. I started off with this young woman and I failed to build any sort of relationship with her. I don’t know if it was just a matter of me not giving her a chance. I don’t know if it was a result of my illness – part of which were feelings of utter narcissism. No-one could possibly fathom the mystery that was me! I was much too powerful, my mind was too complex! Also, I had to ask her how old she was – she was young, fresh out of university. No, she was not married, nor was she a mother. She kept referring to textbooks. I was not impressed. Was I wrong? Was my behaviour towards her poor? I felt aggressive. I felt I had to be on the attack.

Newbiggin-by-the-Sea has these sculptures of people. There is this couple, mounted on some wooden frame, out in the sea. When I first saw them, I was not expecting to see them. For a moment, I thought they were real – then could not work out if they were massive, or far away. For a moment, they did not make visual sense. It gave me a bit of a turn – it looked like a suicide pact or some bizarre stranding of souls.

One of the things that has stayed with me all these years is not realising that I am standing up during appointments. I did it throughout these sessions – I still do it if I have to go to the doctor now. Going for anything – chest infection, gammy ear – has me anxious. They will look at my notes. They will look at me with sympathetic faces. They will say, in an itsy-bitsy voice so! How ARE you? Before I know it, I will be on my feet, ready to either run or fight. One of them asked me you seem angry? Agitated? Why? I said no wonder, when I come here for antibiotics and all you do is look at the screen an accuse me of being mad.

hey why the long face how are we today are we still mad still mad long face how are we today still mad

I tried working with another psychologist – this time, a grey-haired, much older man. We discussed many problems over this period of time. My ability to love someone with a passion, be it lover or friend – then in the blink of an eye, have no interest in them whatsoever. My unfounded fears – the old chestnuts – nobody likes you, everybody hates you. Thinking people are stealing your thoughts from you. Taking the words out of your mouth. Literally robbing bits from inside your brain. It makes me come out and make all kinds of accusations to friends who do not deserve it. Cut my in half like a piece of Blackpool rock and you would see the word PARANOID.

I pick up milk so I can finally have a coffee when I get home. Work uniform ironed. Not be long before I have to set off. All I want to do is stay at home and write poems. I have been trying to nail a piece off-page and I am so close - SO CLOSE! But my Lord, it is so fecking hard to learn something fully with an avalanche of lives pressing in on your brain! Mam! Mam! I hear the kids, the dogs, the horses call. BEEP BEEP BEEP call the tills at work. LEARN ME, WRITE ME! call the poems! PAINT ME, screech the blank pages! Yes, yes, I hear you tut. You are wasting time on here - and yes! I am. But this is my therapy. I am one step away from the Fluoxetine always, and I refuse to go back! No-one has to read this anyhow - I send it out with frustration and empty a small corner of my brain.

I had been going to all these CBT sessions, feeling as if I was never quite saying what I wanted to say. I wanted to talk about  The Time I Saved My Sister From My Mum but I never quite managed to get it out.  I waited right until the very last session, when it had