schizoaffectivegirl

They have cut down my tree with the monkey in.

I’m not sure why they have done this but I feel bereft. As usual. There is more light and a clear view of the view but I don’t want to look at the view. I want to look at the monkey in the tree.

I am sick.

Not in the stomach where the core was considered to be many moons ago. Or the heart as it’s location was later proffered. But in the brain.

I am sick to the very core.

I don’t. Hate the phrase. Overused meaningless rubbish used by bad writers. A pathetic sort of (non) apology by those without guts or wit. She snarled. But I have sidestepped into the territory of pointless facile observations made by many others countless times. This isn’t a column in The Times. I am not Caitlin Moran.

It is an insight into schizoaffective disorder. The side stepping is just denial. Evidence of my normalcy. Evidence of my coping. Evidence that this illness lands indiscriminately on every kind of people. But I’m no crusader. It is in my nature, but not in my illness. Much as I would like to be to mental health what that Scottish woman was to boobs, it ain’t gonna happen. I simply do not have the drive. I’m happy to make harsh judgements of others to feel connected, but at the end of the day I am too busy judging myself. I am an autodidact. There is no room in my head, and too much noise to be anything but. I shut all the windows and ignore the phone because I can. Because there is no one here to tell me not to do this. It’s a bank holiday. Everyone is busy.

Sometimes I am watching everybody as a film in an editing suite, spooling back and forth, fast, slow,stop here, no here, no go back. Not my instructions though. Somebody else’s. I just mean this is how it looks from where I’m sitting, on a stool at the back in the dark. Unseen. Just watching.

Sometimes I really am part of a scene. An active player in the edit. Kept in.

I visited my friends. They have a four week old baby girl. They are extremely good friends. Regular players. I held the baby while they ate dinner. To help. She’s gorgeous. Far tinier and like a baby than mine ever were. I needed to go home. I needed my own solid warm babies. All bigger than me now. I love them. A voice keeps on at me, on and on. Berating me for dropping the baby. On and on, why did I hold the baby? You shouldn’t touch the baby.

I dropped the baby.

I am ashamed. I am aghast. I am appalled.

A tiny precious baby.

I didn’t drop the baby. I take anti psychotics to shut it all up. I will not be told, on loop, that I dropped the baby.

This is happening less though because I stay, and I am becoming more comfortable, on my stool than I ever thought I could. From there it is impossible to tell if I am even watching. I understand the scenes playing, I recognise them, but I cannot identify with them. I can’t seem to find a beginning, middle or end. A problem Wordsworth had, before he explained it all away with some twaddle about spirit worlds. And daffodils. But I have got all the bits in between. And only I really have them so I can remember, foresee and manipulate exactly as I please. Not a bad set of circumstances. But I can’t.  They are the scenes of my life. My life I share with others. What’s the person called who waits behind the wings, learning all the lines in case the lead is indisposed? Anyway, that’s me. I God only hope that the lead has good health and stamina because although I’ve learnt the lines, I have no wish to perform them. What kind of delivery is it without conviction sir? A dishonest one. The scenes are stacked like Jenga, only thinner and much closer together. More like slate. Impacted over time. Try to extract one thin slice and a crack jags through the lot. The tectonic plates are moving. Can you feel the tremor? Tricky. One must play very carefully with great stealth and undetectable strategy.To oppose oneself. Difficult but not inconceivable.

I hate all the pretending.

The show must go on.

My days are a bit strange. Certain things keep me anchored. The latest in my daily delights is Poirot. I have come to this quite late in life. Sooner than my mother who laments her tardy discovery, and later than my daughter, who is similarly smitten. We none of us know why. We none of us ever know whodunnit or indeed what is going on plot wise. Like Midsomer, Columbo et al., it’s akin to sitting on a beach for hours watching everything and nothing, not much recollection but a satisfaction at having had a thoroughly enjoyable time. At first I thought my daughter was joining me in order to keep an eye on me, to perhaps try and see why the show draws me like a drug… But ha! No! C’est non! She has been drawn into the world of the little Belgian man, a world littered with high society deaths and great joints of beef which have little raison d’etre. Oh it’s marvellous! Nobody cares for the tawdry distasteful notion of money so nobody has any and thus the murdering commences. But, madame! monsieur! Poirot az all ze money!

About half way through (who knows in this time vortex) we wander off to have a bath, perhaps do the shopping, walk the dog or take a short city break….. Upon our return however we feel sure we have unearthed ze murderer. Alas the turns have twisted in our absence and during the next seven hours we are utterly lost, unashamedly absorbed and entirely in the hands of Monsieur Poirot .It is a simply wonderful thing.

My daughter just said, oh mum, can we pleeease watch something else, this has literally been on since the afternoon and it’s nearly ten o’clock!

I pause to read her this. She laughs. We are becoming hysterical. She says, but seriously can we stop watching now?

I say, shall we just watch the summing up? She says, it’s never just the summing up though is it….? We resume our confused sedated enchantment. Telling each other, I knew he was a bit dodgy.

Who are we kidding?

We don’t even know our own names.

I eat pot noodles

I eat chocolate in the evenings

I listen to The Smiths.

I wear DM’s and men’s shirts and use a scrunchie to tie my hair. 

I lust over lurid rock stars

I believe in the stars

I listen to The Cure.