Tiny Bit Scary, This One!

OK, peeps! This is one of the pieces I sent in for the final assessment on my writing course. It's 1138 words, and a tiny tiny bit scary- so if you want to skip it till halloween, be my guest!

Otherwise, hope you like it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Letter To My Neighbour

Have you any idea what you've done? The enormity of it?

Years, it was, I suffered with the hauntings. From house to house, the ghosts moved with me. Finally, here, just three years ago, I was freed from the terrors. And now you have let them back in.

*

Unable to sleep within any ‘normal’ kind of pattern for years, now, I have come to follow a routine of sorts, around a nocturnal clock. Mostly, this means I pass my partner, Tony, on the stairs in the morning; he on his way to work, me, to bed. More lately, my night-times have evolved to include peaceful walks in the garden to spot statue-like frogs by torchlight, or check that birdfeeders hold enough for the greenfinches’ breakfast.

Winter nights are spent by the fire, sipping tea and watching old comedies on videotape. Whilst the bright, summer dawns are met in the coolness of my study, where I’ll be exploring emails and listening to the reassuring sameness of the World Service. Unexciting. Unthreatening. Undisturbed, but for the mouse.

I always called it ‘the mouse’, even though I knew that ‘he’ was very probably just one of a fair sized family. Two or three hundred, one edition of BBC Wildlife magazine suggested, although I hid that particular edition from Tony. Any hint at the vastness of the Common Woodmouse’s promiscuity would result in all kinds of pained expressions on Tony’s face. I developed antennae for mentions of such things on wildlife programmes and would intervene with the remote control before the news reached his ears. Such news reaching such ears effected a change in topic of conversation that I did not want to hear: traps.

And so, for nearly two years now, I have cleaned floors more studiously than necessary to the naked eye, pulled out units and machinery from our fitted kitchen to get to the pencil-lead droppings hiding behind, and agreed, enthusiastically, whenever Tony remarked on how we only ever saw one mouse at a time.

Ah, yes. Except there was that one time when - but on second thoughts, the mouse was probably just very speedy. No reason at all why it couldn’t have been the same one behind the sofa and just ducking behind the oven. Just very quick, that’s all. Anyway, no need to say anything. They kept the ghosts away, you see.

*

Have you ever been haunted? It isn’t like in the films. You don’t see their thin, wispy fingers reaching out from just a hint of desperate, beautiful young face. And you can’t help them. There’s no good thinking you can carry out some unfinished business for them and then deliver them into some brightly lit niche somewhere.

They don’t communicate with you. All that M. Night Shyalaman stuff! That’s just to make you feel important, make you feel you have a role to play. But you have no role. Only fear.

God, the darkness. It has so many shades. You think of it as black, but that’s wrong. I first knew this as an eight year old child, lying, stiffly, with frozen fingers clutching the tips of my blankets to my screwed up face, as some hideous creature emerged from beneath my bed. Transparent, it was, yet perfectly detailed, as though drawn by some pencil artist after Drurer. Different shades of pencil in different shades of darkness. I lay staring into it, too afraid to scream or run or blink, barely able to breathe through the leaden weight of my body.

Over the years, I grew more sensitive to the subtle little changes in the atmosphere when a haunting was about to begin. The clicks in the empty kitchen, the straining floorboards, the groaning stairs. I would turn up the television volume, make a ‘phone call, read a book. But soon it would be there: the Presence.

So many times I turned, expecting to see who had just come into the room, only to find an empty space. A sudden coldness down my neck as I did the washing up. A breath against my face as I sat in the bath. Eyes following, watching, burning into my back. But whose?
And then came the laughter. Nothing could be ominous in the sound of children’s laughter. You think not? Distant, yet just behind you. Faint, yet following you down the stairs. Four or five of them. Chuckling, conspiratorially. Always stopping, just as you turn.

I learned to sleep sitting upright in an armchair, too scared to switch off lights and climb the stairs to bed.

*

Strange, the way the ghosts followed me from house to house. Whenever I moved, they were there. I was never sure if they followed me or if they went on ahead. But it would never be long before they made their presence known. My heart would race and the curdling cold sweat come back as again, the familiar, watching Presence returned to hover menacingly in the corners of the room.

Then we moved here. A new house, new town, new county, new neighbours, shops and doctors. And it wasn’t long before the mouse popped out to greet us.

My nights were now filled with entertainment as he examined the new furniture brought into his home. I left food in a corner for him, experimenting to find his favourite dish. Pine nut kernels were a firm favourite. As was anything chocolate. Lettuce and cabbage were surprisingly welcomed, as was a bit of cooked aubergine that got dropped and swept into his corner rather than cleared up. Mushrooms were firmly rejected. ‘Quiet as a mouse’ is the saying, but it proved to be as untrue as the one about them liking cheese. And through his noisy little escapades I came to disregard every little sound.

A rustle from the kitchen? Just the mouse. The door creaked? Opened, slightly? Must have been the mouse. No draught boded ill any more. No knock, scrape or shimmy caused a shiver. The only mischief in the vicinity was four-legged, round-eared, long-tailed and benign.

*

And now. The biscuits and pine nuts I left down for him five nights ago are still there.

You said you’d heard mice in your attic and were going to ‘Phone the man at the council’.

What have you done?

What did he do?

I’ve been sitting here for hours, listening. I did hear some scurrying across the kitchen, even a crunch. I checked the biscuits a few times, I was so sure it was him, but nothing.

I thought Tony was coming downstairs at one point. I was so sure I heard him walking across the landing. The boards creaked, and then the stairs broke into a rhythmic thud....

The pills don’t work without the mice, you see. Not on their own. Not without the mice....

Back to the Old Country

Cherished79 mentions suicide in her latest post. I've a few suicide attempts on my file.

I'm not sure I would try it again. Although, as I have said to someone close to me, I can't even make that a promise to myself, let alone someone else.

Yes, that probably does sound selfish. But the thing is, even when you've been through it, you can't remember the pain. You can remember being in pain, but you can't remember the pain itself, not really, just descriptions of it.

***

I thought I was doing ok, miles better, this last year. Then, last month, out of nowhere, BAM! And I was at the bottom again.

I had forgotten what that DEADNESS felt like. Like being in a street alone, swamped in a thick smog, sinking in quicksand, all at the same time.

WOW. I had truly forgotten that, even though I'd written about it. Know what I mean?
Luckily it lasted only about 10 days. A few weeks more of being fragile, and now I am almost back to where I was.

What if that were to return one day, and didn't go after just a week or two? What if it were still there after five months?

Hmm. That's funny. I was about to write "six months", but decided mid-type that no, I wouldn't be able to stand that. Wouldn't even let myself imagine it going on for that long.

It did before though. And longer. When I was 13, again when I was 21. Those were the times I tried to end it.

At 28 and 34, again. But no attempts those times. Well, I did, but got myself to a doctor. It was more extreme self-harm than serious attempt. The feelings were there, but not the determination. I was still in touch with people around me. That was the difference. Previously I had felt like I was living under a glass dome. There was no way in or out for other people. It's like being sucked down a vortex. In the end you have no energy to reach up. In the end, you think they'll all be better off without you anyway, so please, let me sleep, let me go. If it is love you have for me, don't make me stay with this pain any longer.

***

Saw the psychiatrist last week. I see one every 3 months, for 30 minutes. It is never the same doc, a new person each time. I think it's a training thing. Or maybe, just not a permanent post. Or maybe, a post served by several different hospitals. Who knows. I've never been told the reason. Just a new doc every time.

They never read the file. They each want to start again. So last week, instead of being able to check on my progress, or go over the huge dip I was just coming out of, we were going over how many brothers do I have? And sisters? And is there depression in the family? And how old are you again?

One of these times, I swear, I shall call their bluff. Yes, I shall say. My parents are still alive AND together, currently touring Belgium as part of a circus with my 19 siblings- that's 7 boys, 10 girls and 2 hermaphrodites. Hear voices? Oh yes, all the time. My cats, mainly. They speak 4 languages, you know.

This time, the doc suggested mood stabilizers. I'm not so sure. Just as I said August 2006 when they were suggested.

Is there something I could just take when I was very low? Just for then? Just when I needed a wee bit of extra help?

Off she went to consult with someone else. Comes back all gleeful. So proud and pleased that she is going to help me, looking forward to later, no doubt, when she is sipping wine in front of the TV and reflecting on how rewarding her job is.

"We're going to put you on a mood stabilizer!" she announces.

Oh, really?

I took the prescription from her but haven't had it filled out. Knew I wouldn't, at the time. For all the same reasons I said no to mood stabilizers a year ago. I bet those reasons are there, too, in that file. I'm too tired to go over them again with her. This, in itself, is a sign that I'm still not out of the woods.

***

OK, don't rub it in!

I've had a week of sleepness nights and groggy days, thanks to a heavy cold. To make things worse, I have to try to sleep sitting up when I have a cold, or at least propped up, so that it has minimal impact on my asthma. Hence, I've not had much sleep lately, as I just can't sleep like that!

So it's sort of rubbing my face in it, to turn over my cat-a-day calendar and find this cheeky wee fella!

Don't you wish you could sleep anywhere, anytime, anyhow? -Like Mr Ginger, here? LOL!

Goldfinches!

Isn't he beautiful? But this is a youngster- the adults have red on their faces, covering the eye. Or to be more precise, the males have a red eye mask that covers the eyes completely, and the females' eye mask stops half way across the eye area. If you look closely at the last photo, you can just about see his dad on the right, towards the back. You can see the splodge of his red eye mark.

But anyway, my point is, this fella is lovely, but he'll get even more colourful as he gets older!

It took us ages to get goldfinches to the garden. They eat a tiny seed called nyger seed. It's so small you need to have special feeders so that it doesn't just spill out everywhere. The first feeder we bought, we ended up throwing away. No one came to it. And then, earwigs inhabited it. Yeauck!

In the spring, I heard the goldfinches' very distinctive call again, so bought a new feeder. I tried it in a few places, before they 'found' it here, in our hawthorn tree.

One day, I was standing at the kitchen window, finally deciding that yes, this window is filthy and could really do with a clean, when a goldfinch flew down and half hovered, half leaned on the window-pane, just up in the corner. I watched, amazed, as it pecked away at a cobweb. He fluttered to and fro doing this, several times. They use the cobweb material for binding together the moss in their nests!

It gave me a good reason to leave the window cleaning for a bit longer, and also made me think of spiders in a SLIGHTLY better light. (I'm still terrified of any bigger than an inch, though, and feed them to my Dyson.)

This wee fella confirms that these lovely birds have been breeding nearby. Horray!

One other thing, just look at all the berries on this tree! It is absolutely smothered in them. My mum says that this is a sign that a bad winter is to follow. I've heard that before. What I want to know is, how does the tree know this?

Strange Light

There's always a strange light in the evening here, this time of year. It only happens for a week or so. You get a sort of orange light. It lasts about half an hour, before it starts to grow dark.

I can't capture it with the camera. The last shot is out of focus, I know, but gives a bit of an idea of what it's like. In reality, the gravel, terracotta pots and the red hot pokers were all glowing with a sort of fluorescence that doesn't come out here.

Look at the red hot poke at the top there. Amazing colour. Yes, maybe that top photo is the closest after all.

:^ )

Someone emailed this to me today. Cheered me up.

Bit difficult, this...but does it matter?

Another writing assignment due in this Friday, and I am utterly stumped.

Truth is, I've been very low for a week, now.

I resisted for a long time, but in the end I've had to start taking my "supplementary pills". These are little blue ones I take on top of the antidepressants for "times of especial anxiety or disturbance". Not sure what they mean by "disturbance". Perhaps for when my neighbours put their noisy "music" on (God, I'm showing my age).

The reason I resisted is that they dumb your head down a bit. Push your thoughts into a lower gear. So that they stop spiralling, spinning, merging, bubbling. They don't exactly help you write.

Hey ho.

Found this in my email this morning. It's from a newsletter that tells me I can "unsubscribe" at any time. That's decent of them, since I've never heard of them. Think I get what it says though. Wonder if it will be helpful.........

BY THE BY: FORGET EASE

When something feels "difficult" or "hard," that is not a signal you should not proceed ... Instead of deciding a lack of ease is an indication of what you shouldn't do, next time you notice something feeling hard, stop. Tell yourself you don't know what this means. It may not mean anything more then you need to eat lunch or take a short break. Instead of interpretating, notice what "difficult" feels like as information at it's most basic level: perhaps you notice a sensation of heaviness or of sleepiness or even a vast rush of energy or an inability to sit still.

What if you simply noticed sensation without labeling anything--no feelings, no shoulds or shouldn'ts.

What if you stayed there, bringing your mind back to what you are experiencing without any filter.

What if?

Why thank you! [bleagh]

My sister lives in Australia. She emailed me today and said that her boyfriend had bought her the worst present ever. She wouldn't say any more. Apparently I have to call Mum to find out, as she's already been on the phone to her. She wouldn't go through again for me, it's that bad.

Well, that got me thinking, what was the worst present I ever got?

I'm afraid it was from my fiance. (Sorry, Luvbug, if you read this!)

It was when I first went on some new antidepressants and suffered one of the horrible side effects: a really, really dry mouth.

So he went to the pharmacist without telling me, and came home with "artificial saliva spray". Eugh!
But the bad bit is- he didn't just give it to me, he told me to close my eyes and open my mouth. Obviously reluctant (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I was assured it was safe to do so and that it was "nothing nasty". So, thinking it would be CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did so, and he squirted some of it in!
YUCK!
It was gross.
I know he meant well, "bless 'im", but even so.....
bleagh!

So...over to you- what was the worst present you ever received????

Rats! It's arrived!

My diet book's arrived.
Rats!

I orderd it from Amazon about 10 days ago. Once I had done so, I decided that I could treat myself to anything I fancied until it arrived. Hence, I ticked the box for the cheapest, slowest delivery. HAHAHAHAHA. And now it's here.

Before you write in and say "ARE YOU MAD? I SAW THAT PHOTO OF YOU A FEW POSTS AGO AND YOU'RE HARDLY THE STAYPUFT MARSHMALLOW WOMAN!" no, I don't think I'm hugely fat. But I AM overweight.

I've been here before. In fact, I've been here plus another 14 pounds.

My "ideal weight", I'm told, is between 8 stone 4 and 9 stone 2. (112-126 pounds.) I'm now 136 pounds. I know that's not hugely obese or anything, but it's at this stage that I start to feel, well, round. It's also at this stage that my PCOS symptoms sneak back.

You don't want to know. You do? OK, just don't be eating. They include: spots like when I was 14; excess hair enough to keep a sheep shearer in overtime for several months; fatigue and sleepiness to the point where I forget whether I'm meant to be on breakfast or dinner; depression; dizziness and er................. sorry if you're a guy, but er...... period problems (eugh!).

I tried eating a "healthy" low fat and high fibre way a few years ago. I lost 2lb in 8 weeks, went spotty and achey and my period that month lasted for eleven days THAT'S ELEVEN DAYS. Stroof. So much for healthy eating.

So I switched to low carb/high protein. It worked. Symptoms cleared up in a month. So since then I've avoided sugar, rice and wheat. If I'd stuck to this, I'd be OK. But hey, they make chocolate for me, don't they? I mean Cadbury and me are like that. Last year they said that lots of Cadbury stuff had to be withdrawn because of a salmonella scare in the factory. I thought, "Whoah!!! Salmonella? But that's killed at high temperatures! -ship the chocolate to me: I'll melt it down and eat it with a spoon."

See? Chocolate. That's what did it.

I wonder how long I can last out. (THIS time)

Result (hmmm....)

Got my mark from my tutor for that piece I put on here recently.

I got 82%, which is a "B". You need 85 for an "A".

OK, I know that 82 is a good mark, but I was quite pleased with that piece of writing, more than anything else I've handed in, so I was a wee bit disappointed. So, I wrote and asked him what would have made it an "A".

He said that there were similies and metaphors in it that he didn't get, and so it couldn't be an "A", as "A"s are only for stuff that is publishable. Huh?

Hmmm...... sort of knocked me down a tad.

OK I have a piece of prose, 2000 words, due in by 14th September, plus another 500 words written about it.

Then two pieces of 1250 words each due in by 5th October, along with another 700 words about them.

Nothing written so far.

Nothing in my head writing itself, as sometimes happens, either.

Oh bugger!!!

It's a distance course, but there is an online "forum" for other students. Not many take part. I'm not a part-taker, myself, not much. But I've had a browse over the last few days and see a lot of them talking about having lost their "Muse".

MUSE????

The only muse in my life are mews, and they are produced by my lovely two cats, who live with my mum now, cos she has a big garden and I don't, and I live by a busy road, and anyway, if I had them here, how would I be able to get down there to see her without a cat-sitter up here?

Sorry. It's a sore point.

THIS cheered me up though. Wasn't going to put it on here - not keen on long posts. But it made me laugh.

This is from an online test, to see if you're Bi-Polar:

1. Are you on medication?
2. Do you like blue cars?
3. When considering heights, does the thought of jumping / flying come into play?
4. Do you have bad credit?
5. When contemplating seeing a psychiatrist, do you consider yourself an experiment?
6. Do you shuffle your feet?
7. Do you like blue cars?
8. Do you think "they're" crazy?
9. When you think about being 'normal', do you get depressed?
10. Do you keep noticing things that others miss e.g., birds, daisies, bricks, blue cars?

Results:

0-2 Check your pulse!
3-4 Close, but no cigar
5-8 Yep, you're bi-polar
9-10 This isn't funny, get professional help immediately