12th March 1995 a bit later and when I look at all this now it looks like the ramblings of a mad narcissistic self-indulgent tantrum throwing teenager

Most times in the coming and going of the oppressive pain and misery and black white cold heat I wouldn't be able to get my fingertips into the fissure. Something in "Coma" maybe the thought of me sailing away to death, I worked up the momentum to leave my room and go to the Doctors. Just like that. I could always get fish and chips on the way home if nothing else.


When I got there I came out with some bobbins about having a sore throat. At one point he walked out of the room to get one of those flat wooden things to hold my tongue down with and I just dissolved into tears. I was going to bottle out. I couldn't say "I'm depressed, I'm suicidal, I need help". When he came back and asked what was wrong I knew if I didn't get the words out this endurable unendurable pain would just go on and on and on. So I told him.


He was pretty cool about it. He arranged an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist and that was that. Done over and sorted. I felt as though someone had approached me in the street and said 'If you sign this blank sheet of paper I will give you a big bag of money', and I signed and they did. Like, is that it? Where's the catch? Why haven't the shutters come down? Where are the wailing sirens and men with restraints?


It was never quite as bad again. Still hurt, depressed, confused, suicidal, begging for release, locked in my room, staying in bed, 24 hour eating and TV, stuffing my face, but never quite as bad. Maybe it was knowing that there was such a smooth system for dealing with me, that there had to be others. I still felt marked out for a shit emotional life, but a well-established procedure meant maybe there had been others before me, maybe others now. There might be ways of healing my head. I couldn't be quite the only me. And being alike meant not being so alone.


I was still very reluctant to go and see the psychiatrist (guess the fear of hope had to be dealt with by switching from the fear of hopelessness) because it felt like voluntarily signing up for a programme of brainwashing and I should resist that at all costs. I'd rather have the pain that was real than the peace that was not me. I didn't want to be a fluffy bunny head. I didn't want a New Age grin, a Hare Krishna dance of joy. I'd rather keep cynicism and pain. I didn't want to lose myself. Just the immobility. I was terrified of what I wanted. Terrified of being ambitious for and satisfied with this stereotypical ideal of a 'happy life'. Job, house, marriage, kids, death. I'd rather just die. And yet I wouldn't. Can't have it both ways. That way lies cream cakes and fish and chips.


I wish I'd kept a record of what I felt then, but it all just sounds like words anyway. You'd never believe I felt as bad as you. I'd just hate myself in the morning.


The psychiatrist was pretty useless, just gave me Prozac and told me to imagine a happy triangle of good things. Probably that's not how it happened, but it was the way it seemed. It helped though. After 9 months I decided I'd had enough and stopped. I felt pretty normal, not up or down, just okay. Still suspicious and wary, but okay.


The thing that helped me most was finding out about other people, people I knew, who were taking it to, seeking help, had had lithium, cocaine, sex, vodka, food, reflexology, massage, been committed. I suppose I didn't notice those who dealt with life by sharing and exercise and feeling what needed to be felt when it needed to be felt how it needed to be felt. I assumed that meant they didn't feel in the first place, manageable meant negligible.


Did I just know a bunch of freaks? I don't think so. Married, single, straight, gay, in their 20s and 30s, housewives, students, nurses, something in the city, surveyors, actors, accountants, waiters and writers. They were my 'move your arse I can't see the TV' people. 'I'll have one if you're making one' people. Friends, not strangers. How had I missed all this? Looking inwards and not outwards. It seemed that I just couldn't tell who was like me and who was happy. It was so random. The ones you'd most and least expect, both ways, happy or like me. Good looking, good job, good education, lots of friends, funny, good at sport, - could be happy or like me. It was funny.


Until they told me, I didn't know "I had electric shock therapy"; "I got the pills ready"; "dogs talk to me on the common"; "I held a gun in my mouth". I didn't know. I'd heard the words, but it had never been real, real people. I felt normal, part of the world, in a world that had a place for me. Still not an 'ideal' identity, but an identity, and 'ideal' was dissolving.


I missed it too. I had been special because of this. I wasn't special any more. I wasn't even the worst. I didn't have the best stories. I wasn't good enough at being depressed, special. "Like, I was so special, I'm so sensitive and deep and complicated". Now I was just another miserable person who couldn't cope with the world and everything in it. I hadn't hidden it very well. I was so overweight, dressed like a tramp, didn't wash, didn't work, stayed at home a lot and ignored the phone and ate.


I just kept eating for every reason and no reason. In 1985 I was a size 10/12 135lbs, by 1993, 313lbs. I didn't have a bad childhood, wasn't abused, didn't feel poor or deprived, didn't do drugs or get drunk too much.
In a stupour for a decade.


I need a break.