Someone thinks you've failed.

"This is the right decision."

"No one thinks you've failed."

"No one is judging you."

"No one thinks any less of you."

"No one thinks you're incapable of achieving these things."

"You're not dropping out, you're moving on."

I haven't been to school since January. At first it was just a sickness, then it was a weight, and then it was paralysis, and I'd fall and fall and just when I thought I'd hit the bottom, I slipped and I kept falling.

I went from Under The Weather to Under The World in a very short space of time.

I remember squeezing my eyes tight shut against the feeling in my head, in my hands, behind my ribs and under my hair. I remember waking up feeling voided. I remember my head being too swamped with this thing to feel anything. No grief, no happiness. I lost the ability to retain information. I couldn't percieve what people were saying. I couldn't remember the slightest things and some days I couldn't speak.

There is no feeling like depression. It's not grief, it's not pain. The way it creeps in, slows you down, smothers you and soaks "you" up. It's like walking through oil.

And recently with some medical help the consistancy is changing into something a little more manageable.

The pills help. The talking, not so much. Both are absolutely draining.

Today I went from being on sick leave to actually dropping out of sixth form.

"No one is judging you."

"No one thinks any less of you for this."

I've spent months killing myself thinking that I have to go back, that I'll get nowhere without passing those exams and that I have years of the same thing sprawled infront of me.

I don't.

I don't have to do what they say. I don't have to do everything their way.

I can do what I damn well please, and it has taken me ages to realise this.

So here's so me ending my time in school and moving onto something else.

I'm not fixed yet, that's not even on the horizon. But I'm on my way.

About Fucking Time.

Below the blue.

I've been having too many bad days.

Work is bad. Home is bad. Time goes slowly and I sleep and sleep.

What am I supposed to write about?

The walls fall down.

None of the remotely cheerful today. I'm not in the mood.

Hey, how are you?

I'm great, thanks, you?

I'm..

..So tired I made myself sleep until 6pm to pass the day. A day filled with nothing. A day that I wanted that way because I'm not just tired, I'm drained mentally, physically and emotionally because *it's* always there, not doing anything, just crushing and draining and demanding.

..So wrecked I burst into tears in the shower. I can only be so happy for everyone else.

..So immobile that I lied and said that I couldn't go to meet with my most favourite people ever because I was shifting furniture. I was sat in my room.

..An awful friend. But not enough to care. Which is where I know that I'm not 'Me' as I want to be anymore.

..Full of hate and anger and frustration and misery that just sits and seethes in all the awkward places. At the back of my neck, in my knees and elbows, under my fingernails, in every pore and joint.

..Sure that I've lost the best thing I had going for me.

..Aware that I've got so much worse that even a dose high enough to soothe pretty severe depression has become 'not nearly enough'. I have to see a psychologist, a doctor and a psychiatrist regularly, which sucks butt because they're looking for stuff that just isn't there.

..Not even bored.

I'm fine, thanks.

I'm still considering tearing up the floorboards.

I woke up dead today. My throat was swollen, my nose was runny, I was dizzy because my body, brain and blood is screaming PILLS... PILLS... and making me go all black-out-ish.

I had plans today. I had to get hold of the place that called me (didn't work), I had to go food shopping (nearly didn't work) and I had to get a shower (definitely didn't work).

I had an absolute nightmare because when I was getting dry, the towel snagged my nose stud and pulled it out, it fell on the floor, bounced off my foot and disappeared into infinity. I searched, butt-naked, for the damn thing for half an hour before finding it under the floorboards when lying face down on the floor with a torch.

Called Mum:

"Mum? I need to pull up the floorboards and I'd appreciate it if you weren't totally unreasonable about it."

"No."

"You don't even know why yet."

"I don't care. Fuck no."

Humph.

Random-but-relevant piece of info: Nose piercings hurt like hell and without a stud to keep them open they heal really quickly.

I ran down the street to a Goth shop that I always used to shop in and yelled 'CURVED NOSE RING!' at the empty store. Someone came flying out of the back and helped me find a nice pale blue one.

It's too thin and curved wrong so it knocks the inside of my nose making me sneeze like a.. baby panda.. but it's nice so I'm eternally grateful.

So that's the epic tale of my nose.

I'm so pissed that my beloved, fitting, shiny nose stud is still under the floorboards in the bathroom.

I also bought some delicious pork pies, an apple pie, discovered TO MY HORROR that some scary people say 'erbs instead of herbs and nearly passed out in a restaurant.

Life, 'tis dull..

Woes.

I forgot to take my sanity pills yesterday and today and today I felt it, as in, crying in the storeroom, hating everything, wanting to be nowhere, cursing my manager to the fiery pits of Hades, etc.

It all started out good when I was really chatty to customers and I thought that, hey, this not-taking-my-pills lark was working because I feel floaty and talky. Then one woman started yelling at me because we didn't deliver to her house - a flat in the arse-end of nowhere - and started raving and ranting and stormed off to kill some puppies so, rather than being meek and whatever, I suggested to her husband that he should kindly remind his wife that I personally am not in control of the fleet that is home delivery, that it was an entirely different branch to me and COME ON, I'm lower than breakfast on the pecking order at work. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Then I escaped and went on my break to discover that a random York number had called me, I Googled it and OH FUCK, it was the job I'd applied for. I tried to ring them back a million times and had some serious network difficulties and then I went to my (evil, evil) store manager to ask if I could stop working weekends and then he turned it all around and said that I was jumping the gun and I am 'most likely going to be turned away' anyway.

Fuck him.

I ended up working alone in the upper stockroom where I cried, crooning about hating myself, and when the suicidalness swept in I realised that, oh fuck, I needed to take my pills PRONTO. A day and a half without them and I was a quivering wreck. And there I was, saying just last week that they didn't work as well as they used to. I was wrong, clearly. Apparently, things have just managed to get so much worse.

Now I'm calm again. I'm sat at my brother's kitchen table with a realllly sweet cup of tea (I can hear my mum spitting 'Blergh! Poison!') listening out for Chunk who fell of a swing today, cut the back of his head and ended up in Casualty, fixing Kel and Bunny's Hannah Montana flasks (Hannah Montana - a true sign on crapola) and making plans again.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, pick up the phone and hope to God, Loki, Allah, Anansi, Krishna, ALL OF THEM, that I've got another job.

Mindfudge.

Never ever ever try to out-run a psychologist. They have powers.

I skipped out on an appointment with my shrink last week because she wanted me to get out of bed and that's just not on.

The office promotes insanity by playing a dazzling array of music varying from the dizzy heights of 'Dancing On The Ceiling' to 'I'm Going Slightly Mad' so that you feel nice and insane when you go to see people you go to see.

This morning me and a four-year-old were sat in the waiting room. It seemed bizarre. All four-year-olds are batshit crazy as a fundamental rule, so what had she done to clear the bar? Absolutely nothing, surely. She could've taught my nieces a few things about being a regular sane four-year-old. Maybe this shizzle runs in the family.

When my person came to collect me, it was my turn to be the four-year-old. She told me to mind my step (all of them, it was a flight of stairs.. d'oh), carried my drink for me incase I spilled it, talked like she was my best buddy, all the usual. And then it was my turn to talk for an hour, most of which she spent guessing what I was trying to say, because fuck if I know.

My head isn't a place for words, it's just thoughts, feelings, images, hunches and a sort of black, blank, empty space where things randomly click into sequences that make sense and fall out of my mouth. I'm no artist and I'm not a particularly gifted speaker. Nothing's particularly easy to put into words or anything anyone else could gain insight from, so as far as shrinks go, I'm screwed.

My person is fairly new, she doesn't guard her facial expressions particularly well so I'm forever back-tracking and correcting what I'm saying, which does sod all for my confidence which is the thing that keeps me from being on a massive downer all the time.

My person also thinks that I'm schizophrenic because in my head I refer to myself as 'you' and also I kept hearing a noise whilst I was talking to her which kinda freaked her out, much to my twisted, delicious delight (oh come on, if you can make a shrink nervous you've really achieved something).

Generally, shrinkage always makes me feel worse, as do doctor's visits, dentist appointments and pop tarts, so it's always good to do something to perk myself up before I get home where I can wallow uninterrupted in self-pity/loathing for a good six hours. Walking back through town, I noted that the mental hospital is only five minutes' walk away from the shrinkses, I bought a godly smoothie from Xing Smoothies (om nom nom), a delicious cookie whirl from Millie's Cookies (om nom nom) and then came home and rocked out on Guitar Hero and Just Dance, and it was good.

Small steps, people. Small steps.

Not my day. Because 'My Day' sounds like it went as I wanted it to.

I woke up at two in the afternoon, feeling less like rough and more like ill-fated hedgehog rolled into the road.

Why? You may ask. Why are you so damn lazy?

I'm not lazy, I'm tired. I sleep when I don't want to be awake and when I'm tired. I don't sleep just because I can. I'm tired all the time these days. That's how I'd describe a bad case of clinical depression. It feels like being thoroughly tired, like.. all over. Everything you feel is exhausted and everything you do is exhausting. Commiting yourself to doing anything when you don't feel like it feels like an emotional hazard. There aren't any strong emotions, not really. More like tiny breezes or sparks next to a tidal wave - hardly the most noticeable thing.

Those are the bad days, anyway.

Today wasn't a bad day, I suppose. It was a day that I'll forget about by the end of tomorrow because it'll blend in with a whole army of other days that amount to nothing glorious.

I spent last night nursing a God-awful headache whilst doing the whole 'Jaded' thing. I watched TV without taking any of it in, listened to sad music, looked at photos of times when I actually saw my friends - or anyone - more than once every three weeks, re-read old conversations that made me smile and let out a big. sigh.

This morning? I woke up and baked a cake without any of the pleasure I usually get out of cooking. I watched the end of Marley & Me with Cleo and had a little cry because it reminds me of Zebbie, who I miss more than anything. I cancelled an appointment with my psychologist (yeah..) because talking doesn't help in the slightest, I sat in my room and stared at the ceiling, made plans that made no sense. Nothing much of anything.

The plans were my favourite part of the day.

Shattered.

As the sky is clearing
You clear your mind
Hide all mirrors not to see
What the morphine couldn't hide

I don't feel much like myself right now. My meds aren't working, the trips to the psychologist are driving me mad and I slept until 7pm today just to avoid the day. I can't stand myself.

There's not much to write about, days are filled with nothing and I'm even bored.

No one mourns the wicked.

I don't know whether it's my happy pills making me edgy (they're actually meant to cure anxiety, the bastards) or if I'm just having one of those damning epiphanies but I'm nervous about leaving the house tomorrow.

It's hard to explain. I go to work everyday, I see the same faces and many, many new ones that I'll never see again. None of them know me that well, or at all, and I have the ability to run on auto-pilot at work.

Tomorrow I'm seeing my friends who know me well enough to get it right on the first or second guess and I'm nervous as hell.

I haven't been to school in about two and a half months now. I haven't seen three of my four closer friends in nearly a month. I can't describe how I feel about that because on top of being totally fucked up from the inside out, my head, my judgement and my ability to feel and know it's not The Big Bad making me feel like that is clouded.

Lemon. I haven't seen her nearly as much as I should since she went to college. We all went through the lower school together and then Lemon left for college. Now that I've been out of school for so long I can imagine what it feels like, being away from people your so accustomed to.

Anner. I saw her everyday at school, met her at every break, spent every lunchtime with her and loved it. Insane and insanely good company, only somehow she always managed to make me look like the twisted, evil, insane one. Evil git. God, I love my Anner.

Mo-Balls. A total babe magnet, Mo-Balls wouldn't be sighted in our company very much, she's loved by everyone and is just gosh-to-goodness fantastic. She's also absolutely hopeless. Only don't tell her I said that. Jesus...

BFF Main Gay.5. Thinking of him makes me ache a little. He doesn't talk to me now. The last time we spoke he shouted at me, telling me to do something, anything that wasn't doing nothing. I love him a lot, he's like some close relative to me, and like most of my close relatives right now, he doesn't understand how my head is all that well. That's not his fault.

I remember reciting everyone's timetables every year as we grew up. Arranging to meet up at school, out of school. Organising trips to Whitby, meeting up to exchange Christmas presents. One of my favourite days ever: Christmas Eve 2008 sat on the City Walls with my urban family, just sitting about, being together.

So I'm nervous. I loved being with my friends, I loved the hugs and the laughs and the love that we all just exuded and soaked up. I'm not sure if it'll be the same tomorrow, just like old times where we meet up with lots of smiles and catching up.

I feel like I'm standing at the end of a really long tunnel. That's what it feels like. My head feels full, I feel not cold, but dead and I'm just losing. I don't know what I'm losing.

Most of my secrets end up here anyway. I kinda suck.

Afterthought.

I have a hard time just letting things happen.

Maybe because it's because I'm so headstrong that I don't like to let things I have no control over just happen anyway. I like to have the ability to yell 'woah woah woah, what the shit?' if it gets to be too much and to be heard and to have that acknowledged.

Lately it feels like I've been sat on the sidelines struggling to follow the storyline. I can't really grasp any of it because it's constantly changing and seems so blurry.

I tried caring once. Then I stopped trying. The end.

I'm having what my mum likes to call a bad day.

I call it one of those days where I think you say I'm ill but really you all drove me crazy.

It's just one of those days where I sincerely do not give a crap. It's a day where I hate Dr. D for not seeing a problem and fixing it instead of turfing me out and onto counselling which I need like a frog needs sunburn.

I don't see how it helps, talking about stuff around me when that's what bothers me in the first place. It's stuff that can't magically disappear either, so there's no use trying. I fucking hate talking about myself. (*she says, talking about herself*)

What I need is a really long holiday, one where I don't need to worry about whether or not each time I go to work will be my last (job insecurity is a bitch), whether I should go to school or not (the answer is usually a resounding negative) and whether or not I should just call it a day and fuck off to Lapland or something.

Lapland is awesome this time of year, by the way. And you don't need to learn the language if you're all by yourself (though I did have a stint with Finnish a few years ago koska olen fantastinen).

Sleeping is probably more productive than moaning about Dr. D right now, so I'm spent.

Hole in the head.

I really don't know how to sum this up.

I'm not at school anymore. I'm not happy or sad about that.

I sleep until 2pm, wake up, walk around a little, and then stay in my room. I feel weighted though I don't have many things to worry about anymore.

I didn't want to go back to school. I had no motivation to do anything. I remember just thinking 'I don't want, I don't want' because I couldn't trap it down to just one discernable thing.

I've been put on indefinite leave from school because I'm suffering with major depression and if I carried on being there, I wouldn't have held up for long.

I wasn't allowed to just leave like I wanted to because people have now decided that I can't make my own decisions. That annoys me more than anything. They talk about being 'fixed' like I'm a bike or a horny dog.

I feel awful. I go to school feeling bad, I get home feeling so much worse. I go home and lie in bed. I talk to people because I have to. If I go out to see people I come home feeling blank.

Today's just a bad day. I've just been feeling really bad.

I can't think of anything else.