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 |  My first blog! |
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A Haunted Place  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Who Am I? Ghoulish and dark, serious and intense Okay, I may have exaggerated a little bit! I'm not that gloomy and miserable. I do know how to have fun and I love to laugh. This is my first blog and I've set it up to help motivate myself to write every day... well, almost every day... well, more often than I write now.  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I'm docked at "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"  , a safe port for bloggers to connect. |
My poem, "Invalid Item" , got an Honourable Mention in "The Writer's Cramp - Poetry Week" , so yay!  |
I decided to check out The Writer’s Cramp prompt earlier and for some reason it inspired me to ponder what happened to the owl and the pussycat from Edward Lear’s poem! I just went with it, let my imagination run riot, and this is the result:
I feel a little guilty that I divorced them…  But wow was this fun to write?! It is so much fun attempting to emulate a classic poem and this is the second time I’ve tried it out. My first attempt was this:
I’m getting a little worried… out of the last twelve poems I have written, six are in the comedy genre. What is going on? Could it be…? Am I becoming… light-hearted…? Oh the horror! Anyway, this is the first poem I have written in almost five months. I’m nervous about sharing it for that reason. Plus, I divorced the adorable owl and pussycat! That’s controversial! I’m afraid people will protest… maybe picket my notebook… boycott my port… I’m afraid a mob will come for me!  Apologies, I'm in a very silly mood. Insomnia is making me delirious! |
| “When you think that you've lost everything, You find out you can always lose a little more” [Trying to Get to Heaven by Bob Dylan] So, this month the demonisation and disempowerment of the most disadvantaged people in British society begins properly. The poor, the disabled, the unemployed… our government doesn’t care about you. Our government will TAKE from you. Our government will step up a gear in portraying you as lazy scroungers who are a burden on society. I am sickened by what is happening. |
| ARGH! It’s 4:30am. I should be asleep! Today has been pure hell but I’m doing a little better now as I finally got the chance to talk through how traumatic yesterday was, which has helped to some extent. It’s going to be a tough month, I think, trying to stick to a treatment I find incredibly triggering and also taking a medication that hurts my stomach so much and makes me feel sick. I’m really bad at keeping up with medication in normal circumstances so I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to manage this. One day at a time, I suppose… I really try not to think in these terms, but I think in this case I am perfectly justified and I’m going to allow myself a little pity party:  why the hell is this happening to me? What could I possibly have done to deserve this?  That’s it though. I’m not allowed to think those things again! Now I’m going to try to get some sleep so I have enough energy to battle through tomorrow. I just need to take life one day at a time at the moment, or one hour at a time… or even one minute at a time if necessary… |
| I cannot believe my luck. Honestly. A problem I thought was gone is back. It is so, so triggering, bringing back all the feelings of fear, shame and humiliation associated with the trauma I experienced TWELVE years ago. I hate that something so far in the past has such power and control over me now. What happened today is already having a huge impact on my state of mind, which is deteriorating rapidly. HOURS of my evening/night have been lost to obsessive, repetitive behaviour that I just can’t STOP. I am exhausted. I honestly don’t know what is going to happen to me. I feel so ashamed and weak that my own mind is destroying me. I don’t know why I’m blogging about this! Just trying to organise my thoughts, I think. Plus I’m so, so alone tonight. I should never be left alone—I withdraw too far into my crazy mind! I’ll get lost in there one day… |
| I badly need cheering up today. I think it's time to bring out the big guns: [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] How unbelievably adorable are they? I love how they seem to consult with each other! Way too cute!  |
| I never realised just how distressing eczema could be until I started suffering from it myself. And after googling “can’t cope with eczema” I’ve realised that I’m actually quite lucky. Some people get it all over their body and others get it severely on their face. At least it is just my toes that are affected. When I look at the unsightly, blotchy skin on my feet I feel really down and worry that they will still look like this when it is warm enough to wear sandals. So I see how it could totally destroy the self-esteem of someone who gets it on their face and my heart really goes out to those people. Where I’m unlucky is that my eczema seems to be resistant to treatment! (On my left foot, anyway. Bizarrely my right foot is much better). I’ve had it for over a month now and have been treating it with a combination of an emollient wash, moisturiser and a steroid cream. Since Wednesday I have also been taking four antihistamine tablets a day, which my doctor prescribed along with more steroid cream. And still no change! The itching is the worst. That itching! I’ve never experienced anything like it! It’s beyond intense. Every night it gets me, either waking me up or coming on just as I’m drifting off to sleep. No wonder I am so damn exhausted! I try to resist scratching. I clench my fists or pinch my arms or bite my fingers in an attempt to distract myself from the maddening sensation but eventually I can resist it no longer. As I’m scratching like someone possessed I tell myself that it will only make it worse, that it will thicken my skin, that I’m risking infection and still I can’t stop. I feel like I could scratch my foot into oblivion! At its worse, I could quite cheerfully chop the damn thing off.  |
| I’m having one of those days where I can’t settle to anything and everything annoys me. It is an unbearable state to be in! When I’m like this I have to work extremely hard to not completely withdraw or shut down. Even the simplest questions become inexplicably hard to answer and conversation is impossible. However, I also feel a great need to express… something… but I don’t know what I want to say or how to say it. I feel like I’m a headache personified. Does that make sense? That’s the closest I’ve ever come to describing what this state feels like. I really need to get back to writing poetry. I feel a great sadness that I don’t write it anymore. I can’t figure out why I stopped or why a part of me won’t let me start again. Maybe it’s to do with feeling that I have nothing important to say. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I miss it so much and yet I still can’t bring myself to put the effort into exploring what is really going on. It’s like I’ve put this part of myself in a room, locked the door and lost the key. I can glimpse it through the keyhole but I can’t truly access it. And I have no idea where to even begin looking for that damn key! I’m not sure if I’m making much sense. I feel crazy tonight. I’ve tried distracting myself. I played the piano earlier and made some progress. I feel like I had a breakthrough with two of the pieces I’ve been practising. I felt like I actually managed to express the emotion I was feeling through my playing. I don’t think I’ve done that before, definitely not since I was a child anyway. I hope I can do it again. I also watched “A Dangerous Method” but I just didn’t feel engaged by it and I totally lost interest towards the end. I thought it was well acted and I’m usually very interested in psychology so perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I’d watched it in a different mood. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I wish I knew what I really want to say.  |
My mum and sister have both gone out so I’ve been taking the opportunity to practise the piano. I don’t like to play when people are in the house! ( ) For now, I just play for me and I don’t especially want to play for anyone else. I hadn’t practised in a while and it felt good to get back into it. I wasn’t as rusty as I thought I’d be, considering I’ve had a bit of a gap, but I’m a perfectionist and can put too much pressure on myself. I have to be careful of that as I will end up sucking the fun out of any activity! But I do enjoy working hard at something and seeing improvements, however small they may be.I only took Jade for a short walk today because it was bitterly cold and neither of us were having fun. It snowed a little bit this evening and heavier snowfall is forecast for tonight. Great! What has happened to Spring? I’m fed up with this cold weather now and snow is sooooo disruptive, I can’t stand it. I’m trying to think what else I’ve done today but I’ve been so lazy. Mostly I’ve been playing Sims 3. I’m a little bit addicted to the University Life expansion pack and it almost makes me miss University. Almost…! One thing I forgot to blog about before is that I have enrolled on a machine sewing course. I’m not sure why really… I had a random moment, I think! Although I did a Textiles GCSE (and got a B for it), I’ve signed up for the beginner’s class because I used to be afraid of the sewing machines at school and avoided them as much as possible, sewing by hand whenever I could get away with it. Plus that was ten years ago, so I feel like a beginner anyway. Am I supposed to remember how to do something I did ten years ago?! The class starts next month and I’m feeling positive about it. It’s only 5 or 6 weeks so I’m confident I’ll be able to stick at it… unless it’s really awful! |
| I was only diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the end of January and have already had two people express their surprise that someone on the spectrum can have a sense of humour. What’s that about? For the record, I am very witty (if I do say so myself!) and have an excellent and varied sense of humour. I suppose if I’m going to tell people about my diagnosis then I am also going to have to learn to deal with their misconceptions/stereotypical views of the disorder. I went to the job centre yesterday to see what they can do for me now, in light of the diagnosis, and the woman I spoke to had clearly read up a bit on Asperger’s Syndrome and had some very fixed and stereotypical ideas of what it is. She was convinced that I must be a super-focused person with a super-human ability to do repetitive tasks. I don’t think I’m like this though admittedly I haven’t had much experience of “repetitive tasks”, whatever they are. She also didn’t think I would be able to understand metaphors/analogies. She described how we need to approach my path to gaining employment like building a house, starting with the foundations etc and then said “but that was probably just gibberish to you”. Um… no. I know she didn’t mean to offend me but I did feel a little peeved. Why didn’t she ask me if I understood rather than just assuming I didn’t? Also, I had just told her I enjoy reading and creative writing so am clearly someone who understands metaphors! Grrrr. Anyway, I am being referred to the disability advisor and will go from there. I like being proactive. I’m glad things are moving forward now; I just hope I don’t get overwhelmed and fall behind. It seems like I have a lot of options. I was bombarded with information yesterday and got a bit overloaded. Towards the end of the appointment I went into “I don’t know” mode. As in: “what are your other interests, Jessica?” “I don’t know”. Argh! How can I not know????? So frustrating. I’m feeling tentatively positive about the whole employment thing but am very anxious too. I don’t know what I’m ready for and what I will be able to cope with. I’m worried that because everyone is so focused on the Asperger’s Syndrome at the moment that my mental health difficulties will be pushed to one side and forgotten about. That would be a disaster! My priority has to be recovering from depression otherwise I’ll end up killing myself and then obviously I won’t be able to work at all. (That was just a little demonstration of the warped aspect of my sense of humour!  )I’m so tired, which isn’t surprising seeing as it’s 3:20am. I think I’ll go to bed. |
| Life has been pretty crazy for me again recently so I haven’t been around on WDC too much. I always find it difficult to get back into the swing of things when I’ve been inactive for a while. Mark just visited so I’ve been spending lots of time with him. Also, I had my wisdom tooth extracted on Tuesday and have been recovering from that. That’s one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had! Although I had a local anaesthetic, so was awake for the procedure, I was given a sedative which made me feel very dizzy and dopey. Therefore I have no memory of the actual extraction, which Mark keeps reassuring me is a good thing, but I find it disturbing that I can’t remember something so big! What I can remember is the surgeon saying it was all finished and me thinking how the hell can it be finished when he hasn’t even started? Very strange. The first couple of days after the surgery were fine and I was surprised at how little pain I was in. The pain is worse now than it was then, which is concerning me a bit… Health-wise I’ve been a bit crap. My depression and anxiety have been pretty bad and I’ve been finding the three weeks without my support worker very tough. She’s back next week though so hopefully that will help me a bit. Also, the eczema on my feet hasn’t improved and has been driving me absolutely mad! I’m seeing my doctor about it again on Wednesday. I also managed to scratch my eye last week, which wasn’t a whole lot of fun. I went to see my optometrist who gave me eye drops. I think that is improving and I’m allowed to wear my contact lenses again now. Yesterday I finally received the report of my autism assessment. This was not an easy read for me and I actually found it quite upsetting. It made me feel like I’m a very selfish person who only communicates to meet my own needs and who is indifferent to other people. I know this isn’t the whole picture of me though, and I need to keep telling myself that. I also need to keep telling myself that it is a clinical report of my diagnosis and difficulties, not an account of my character. I know that I’m a kind, caring person who often feels empathy for others to such a degree that it is debilitating for me. Then again I do realise there is some truth in the report and that I am pretty self-absorbed or inward-looking or whatever you want to call it but that this is just how my brain is wired and not something I can help or change. I think I’ll need a few days to digest what I’ve read and then I may contact the psychologist with a few questions. There were a couple of things I found a bit confusing. So this is what has been going on for me and why I haven’t blogged in a while! I hope things will settle down again soon. |
| I am unbearably sad tonight. I am being dragged under by yet another great wave of depression. I'm sorry if I can't always respond to emails/comments/reviews promptly at the moment. I hate to be rude but the smallest things are a huge effort when I get like this. Hopefully this won't last long. I'll be back when I can breathe again. |
| I have noticed since my Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis that my social anxiety has increased. I think this is because I have been spending more time analysing my social interactions than normal and have been paying more attention to how I am with others and how they react to me. I really hope this will settle down because it is getting incredibly irritating. Well, actually it is becoming quite distressing. |
| Who would have thought a strip of fabric, two straps, a couple of wires and some hooks could cause so much misery? Yes, I am talking about bras!!!!!! Sorry for the personal topic but I am at the end of my tether with these damn things! Somebody needs to tell the bra industry that skinny ladies can be curvy too and that actually even a band size of 28inches can be too big!!! We’re constantly told that it’s so important to wear a correct fitting bra and yet they’re still mass-producing these crappy things in fixed sizes which do not take into account individual women’s differences in body size and shape. Infuriating! I googled custom-made bras earlier but only found two places that look vaguely promising: one in London and one in Berkshire. Neither store have a price guide on their website so I’m guessing prices are astronomical! But the London store boast they are experts in the bra industry and have changed women’s lives... I think what I will have to do is learn to sew and make my own! I am actually tempted to do this. I suppose it would take an awful lot of trial and error but would save me an awful lot of pain and misery if I was successful. It would probably end up saving me money too, in the long term. Hmmmm… |
| I’ve come to the realisation (or, more accurately, I’ve re-realised a long-buried realisation) that living in this house drags me down, down, down and that I really, desperately, urgently need to get my own place. But being unemployed makes that incredibly difficult. And being so ill makes solving the problem of being unemployed incredibly difficult. And not being able to solve the unemployment problem, not being able to get better and not being able to move out of the house that’s making my illness worse makes me just want to curl up die! Cue hysterical laughter or sobbing. Hahahahaha! (I went for laughter!) Last night I spent a long time reading some of my old reviews. Occasionally I clicked open an item I’d reviewed to see if the person followed any of my suggestions (just out of curiosity, not arrogance I hope). Anyway, I probably did this about fifteen times and guess how many people out of that fifteen followed my suggestions? Just one. One! I can’t tell you how disheartening that was. The weirdest thing for me though, was that so many people didn’t even bother to correct spelling or grammatical errors I’d pointed out. Very, very strange. If anyone points out an error in my work I race to fix it as quickly as possible, blushing at the thought that someone else will come along and spot it too! And not meaning to sound arrogant, but some of my other suggestions, not just the grammatical/spelling ones actually made a lot of sense! Sure, some of them were a bit crap but I am confident that at least a handful of them were truly good suggestions! This has just reaffirmed what I suppose I already knew. I used to be like that—all I wanted were those five stars and glowing comments and I felt a great injustice had been done to me if I didn’t get them! I’ve grown out of that, thank goodness, and now I seriously consider each and every suggestion sent to me. Of course I don’t always agree with the reviewer, but I would never ignore a decent suggestion just because my pride had also been wounded through knowing that somebody doesn’t love and cherish my work as much as I do! Am I making sense? Enough of this I think! I feel like a raving lunatic tonight. I wish, wish, wish more than anything that I didn’t have insomnia. |
Having said in my review section that I keep my reviews to the point and don’t waffle, I end up writing a 4800 character review!  I don’t think I waffled in it though… I just suddenly had a lot to say! Perhaps this happened because I’ve gotten out of the habit of reviewing regularly. I don’t know. It felt quite nice though, to actually want to read and comment on someone’s work and to actually find that I do have something to say. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this up—ideally I’d like to write one or two reviews a day.Today has mostly been boring. Except, I’m re-reading "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber, which is AMAZING. But apart from that, I’ve been bored. I’ve played games on Facebook a lot. I was considering closing my Facebook account because it causes me stress about 90% of the time but then it is a good way of staying in contact with people and keeping up with their lives without really having to interact with them too much. I like that about it! So I think I’ll keep my account… I might just “hide” the more annoying people from my newsfeed…  I think I might try and summon up the energy to watch a film tonight. It always feels like such an effort to watch a film but I usually end up enjoying it more than I think I will. Or I might just push on with my book though I have read a ridiculous amount today. I have about 300 pages left to read though I’ve read so much already—it’s over 800 pages. But it’s well worth the effort and the size of it didn’t put me off reading it second a time. I love it! And when I’ve finished it I’ve got "The Apple: Crimson Petal stories" to read, which I bought with some of my birthday money. I can’t wait!  |
| Go me! I completed two reviews tonight. It was PAINFUL. It took YEARS (well, maybe not years ). But it took a long time. I did it. I feel proud of myself. And it wasn’t so awful when I got going. I feel a little anxious now as I always do when awaiting responses for reviews but hopefully any replies will be positive. I rock!  Please will someone request a review from me? I want to see how the new system works and I am READY! Haha! Though I've set it so I can only receive 2 requests at a time otherwise I might get overwhelmed... |
| I have a cold! It’s not too bad right now. I hope it won’t get worse! My stress is at an unmanageable level at the moment though, which is why the skin on my hands is cracked, dry and bleeding. Stress = ridiculous amounts of hand-washing. Not good! But I’m not actually sure what is stressing me out—probably various things but I can’t be bothered to delve into this too much right now. Yesterday was a pretty productive day for me. I made a start on learning French, practised the piano and read a lot. I almost felt as if I were an accomplished lady in a Jane Austen novel or something like that! Haha! But today has been one of those tedious days that go on and on, where nothing is achieved, so that has dragged me down a lot.I plan on taking a sleeping tablet tonight. Although I was only prescribed seven, and I wanted to try and save them for nights before my voluntary work or anxiety-provoking appointments, I just can’t bear the thought of being awake at ridiculous o’clock and feeling even crappier. I am really looking forward to going to bed and sleeping at a normal hour. I do not want to see 3 or 4am! Those are the WORST hours of the day, in my opinion. That reminds me, I have a poem called 3AM. I might make that my “Current Poetry Plug”. I’ve given up on calling it “Poetry Plug of the Week” as I kept forgetting to change it! Anyway, here’s the poem:
I like this one!  |
| Yesterday was pretty tough. I went with my mum and sister to visit my dad. He lives about 2½-3 hours away so all the travelling was pretty gruelling. My dad has just come out of hospital and he’s not in a good way. Nobody really knows what is going on with him but this all started when he underwent alcohol detoxification. He became very confused and lost feeling down one side of his body. He had a stroke several years ago and the doctors thought he might have had another one but I think that has been ruled out now. He was in hospital for a little while but we didn’t really know what was going on as the staff couldn’t give out much information over the phone. He’s back home now and his friend is staying with him because she doesn’t think he could cope being alone. He has to use a stick for walking now and he’s lost a lot of his fine motor skills. He is still quite confused, though not as much as before thankfully, but he’s experiencing a lot of paranoia too. He went to see his GP while we were there who has said she’ll chase up the hospital to see what’s going on. It’s all very confusing and worrying. My dad was almost unrecognisable. He has turned into an old man. And all because of alcohol…Today has been less stressful. I’ve been taking it easy. I went into town and bought a book and CD set to teach myself French. I did do a French GCSE at school but can hardly remember any of what I learned now. I have been meaning to learn another language for a long time and I’m determined to do it! I think I’ll do the self-taught course and then look into doing a class. I’ve added a cover image to my portfolio. Go look! I love it! I love the new review tab too and am hoping this might inspire me to get back into reviewing. I really, really want to start reviewing again… I just need to build my confidence back up. Perhaps I should stick to reviewing people I know for now? I’m not sure. I need to stop blogging now as I’ve hurt my shoulder and wrist and typing isn’t helping! I think I’ll go and read and then try sleeping. It’s 3am! I BADLY need to sort my sleep pattern out! |
| I’m home from the pity party I apparently attended last night! Well, I’m nearly home… I have just done some work on an item that was set to private in my port. It is now public again and I’m pretty happy with the changes I made. I might make an effort to plug this properly later.
I have a completed short story that I allowed Mark to read when he visited. That was a BIG deal. I often feel confident about my poetry and my ability to tell whether a poem I’ve written is good or bad or in between but I cannot do that with my stories. Maybe it’s because I hardly ever write them! I don’t know. I’m trying to pluck up the courage to put it in my port. I want people to read it but I’m also terrified of people reading it! However, it doesn’t have a title yet so I will have to come up with one before I can share it! |
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