Punishment

I'm pushing people away and I'm fully aware that pretty soon there'll be no-one left. Setting my friends up with tests to prove they care, so that when they fail I can justify my decision to cut them out of my life. A new twist on self-flagellation we could say. I need to feel like I matter, so instead I turn myself more and more invisible. Hoping, wishing that eventually someone will notice and take me in hand and prove to my fragile ego that I'm not as disposable as I feel. Being self aware doesn't mean I can stop it. The hurt feelings remain, simmering evidence of the methods effectiveness.

Zombie

Don't worry about Zombie Walks or having fun.

Don't worry that you're letting down a whole heap of people that have already spent money on make up and tickets and are dependent upon you for the event to go ahead. They're inconsequential, they don't matter, they're not your friends.

Don't worry about letting me down. Don't worry that you've let me down countless times before. I'm just a bit of fun. I don't matter enough to be an issue.

Don't worry that being ignored upsets me, again I'm not important enough for you to be concerned about my feelings. And I'll be the one to try and cheer you up, make you feel better, fix your world because YOU are what counts. Your happiness, your mood, your wants and needs.

I'll alter my behaviour because what I want or need is irrelevant. I won't post things on facebook because it might upset your ex and make you feel uncomfortable. I won't ask anything of you because it puts unfair demands on you. Won't make plans because that's a commitment that you're not willing to make. Stupid me for thinking that because YOU suggested this it might turn out differently.

Faithless

Feeling insecure.

Keep telling myself that I don’t care. That it’s not love. It’s not going to be love. It’s a short-term thing, it’s fun, it isn’t about emotion.

If I remind myself often enough, maybe I’ll believe it. I’ll be able to control my heart and not fall for you. So i’ll not mind if you decide to walk away, if you just stop calling or answering texts. So it won’t hurt if I see pictures, or hear tales that suggest there is somebody else.

I have no reason not to trust you, nor any evidence that I should. I find myself building up barriers against you - protection for whenever it is that you do let me down. We’ve made each other no promises, haven’t defined what or where we are. You confound me with your consistency, whilst remaining resolutely detached.

I think about rejecting you first. If it’s not going to be enough, I should probably end it now. I’m torn between the knowledge that I’m not emotionally resilient enough to let you or anyone in, yet don’t want to be completely alone. I feel as though we’re treading water, poker face on, neither willing nor able to show our cards.

What I want doesn't exist. I'm chasing a mirage and I know it, I just can't work out how to stop myself. I've come to the conclusion that I'm an absolute master at kidding myself, finding every which way to rationalise things out, explain and excuse bad behaviour on the part of others, when the reality is they just don't care enough to be any different. I allow myself to be hurt in the same way over and over again, long past the point when anyone with any sense would have walked away.

I KNOW this. I tell myself this constantly. I just need to learn to believe it. Maybe i've got an overactive hope chip. An adversion to facing reality. Some deep rooted belief that eventually the world will work out the way I want it to be I just have to be stubborn and refuse to face facts. I should know better.

Now

Wondering how many times you can reach the bottom before you lose the ability to resurface. Wondering if every decision lead me to now then how many decisions were wrong. Were any of them ever right? Am I a product of my own action or inaction? If everything you want is something you can't have then what is left and is any of it really real?

Last Week

I lay awake watching you sleep, trying hard not to trace the outline of your face so as not to disturb you. You look so beautiful and contented and I can hardly breathe because all I’m thinking is “don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up…” so perfect that I need to pinch myself, or you, to prove that you’re actually real. Terrified that I’ll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing and it’ll all disintegrate into dust.

I can feel a barrier between us like you’re already distancing yourself from me. Protection against what you already feel and falling for me further or the beginnings of loss of interest? It’s impossible to tell. I have too many of my own demons to battle, conflicted in my desire to throw myself head-first yet fearful that it’s all a mirage and that I don’t have the resources to pick myself up again so need to hold back from falling too far. Too late. I’m already in too deep.

Mind Control

It starts with little things.

Rolled eyes when the phone rings. Snide remarks initially veiled with humour, latterly throw about with ease.

"Who is it now?"

"What do they want?"

"Why are they calling?"

"What do you see in them anyway?"

"They're not really your friends"

So you stop calling. Are a little awkward and offhand when you answer the phone. Make excuses. Don't reply to messages. Roll your eyes in return at the sound of the phone.

"See, they never call you. Never invite you out. They don't really care about you. Not like me"

"What are you wearing?"

"Why do you like that?"

"What are you doing?"

"Don't behave like that. It's not what people like us do"

Slowly you inch towards becoming a person you'd barely recognise. You forget that once you had your own opinions. That you could state your own mind with certainty. That once you knew which books you liked, what music you chose to listen to. That you had friends you could call when you were feeling low.

Eventually it comes to a head. You fight back. Reassert your own personality. Readdress the balance of control. Give the other person a choice, take me as I am or go. Accept me for who I am, for WHAT I am.

"Of course I love you for who you are. You're the person I fell in love with. I'm not the monster you make me out to be"

"I don't try to control you"

"You're the controlling one. Look at everything you've done"

"Let's start again. Go back to how things used to be. We're special. Remember?"

You breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn't really so bad. You misinterpreted things. You're too touchy. Over-analytical. Too easy to bruise. You need to relax. Accept things for what they are on the surface rather than assigning a more sinister deeper meaning to insignificant acts.

You open up. Begin to trust.

"Oh sweetie, can you just do me a little favour"

Smiling eyes, pleading face

"can you just change...."

Becca wants

Spring. Outside. To be free. Sunshine. Fun. More time. More space in my head – or at least some kind of plug to stop things falling out. To be able to think clearly. To get wasted. To smile. To laugh. To fall in love again. To shout. To scream. To have someone listen. To talk. To share. A tidy house. Someone to cook for me. To know why everything good is bad for you. My friends to be closer. To run. To jump. To play. To be 24. To be 16. To be 12. To take acid for the first time. To know if fixing the past fixes the future or if fixing the future fixes the past. To understand physics. To hate photosynthesis a little bit less. To know why all the female lecturers I meet have massive chips on their shoulders. Lemonade sherbet. Old friends. New friends. To think less. To think more. To understand. To know. To reason. To fight. To dance. To be able to escape from me for a day, a week, a year. To be needed less. To be needed more. Excitement. Emotion. To be somewhere else.

Indecision

I'm trying to reach a decision. Actually, I think I've probably already reached the decision, I'm just not really sure how to implement it. I know what I should do. I know what I want do. I'm also fully aware of what everyone else would tell me to do if I were to bother discussing it with them (only I won't because I already know exactly what they would say given the opportunity to add some input into the situation). Only I'm not really sure that should, could, would and want all lead in the same direction.

Which Me?

If we asked our best friends to describe us would the traits match those we ascribe to ourselves or portray a different individual entirely? Who am I anyway? Am I the person I want to be? Try to be. Strive to be, wish to be...or that which I run away from and deny?

Who is right - you or me? If we could truly see ourselves as others see us would it inspire us to change, to be someone different? Or more determined to stay the same?

Waiting

I'm due to have an operation in a couple of days. Its not really a particularly dangerous operation per se, but it is pretty serious. And its on my head which makes it seem more scary. And in general I'm not all that over-awed with the idea of being operated on. Of being knocked out. Of losing control and having no say in what happens to me. At the possibility of things going wrong. At the form I've signed allowing them to do whatever they need to once they start. Its explorative surgery. The boundaries arn't really defined. They'll decide what needs doing once they get in. But I don't have a choice. I have to go through with it because its too risky not to. Because the dangers associated with NOT having the surgery are life-threatening. Its the surgery or nothing. There's no drugs that could fix things. No other option.

But my husband dreamt I was going to die. He has whole churches in Nigeria praying to god to save me. He tried to talk the surgeon into operating with me awake. He's spent a year trying to convince me not to have the operation. My dad agrees. He doesn't think my disease exists because he can't find it on the internet. That the doctors are making it up. My mum thinks I should have the operation but can't sleep at night because they've freaked her out. She has churches in England and Ireland praying for me.

I know too much. I'm a biochemist. I've done research. I know what the doctors arn't telling me. I know why the five doctors I've seen over the past 18 months are all telling me to have the surgery as soon as possible. So I agreed. Signed the forms. It going ahead. But I'm scared. The logical sciency bit of me is saying that its the right choice. That the surgery is low risk. That I'll be fine. The remaining overdramatic, overimaginative majority of me is terrified. I want to run and hide. Stick my head in the sand and wait for it all to go away. Pretend that everything is fine. Pretend that its happening to someone else. Think happy thoughts and wish it away. I'm not the type of person that can shrug off someone telling me they think I'm going to die. I'm too superstitious. I think too much. I'm caught halfway between attempting complete denial (don't think/talk about it and everything'll be fine) and lying awake all night because its the only thing on my mind. I want to talk to all the people that I care about. Resolve outstanding issues just in case I don't get another chance. To write letters for my children to say the things I'd like to say to them as grown-ups. But I can't. That feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. That if I allow myself to act as though it might go wrong then its more likely to. Not very scientific thinking, but then I've never been good at molding myself to fit other peoples labels and beliefs. So I wait. Permanently conscious of the slow ticking of seconds. Only two more days to go.

Fear

I used to have panic attacks. I say used to because for the past ten years or so I've pretty much had them under control, but the panic is still there, simmering under the surface, waiting to grab a hold of me. And I'm scared of things. I'm scared of a lot of things. Spiders. The dark. Chicken bones. Driving to places when I don't know where I'm going. Being late. The unknown. Flying.

But mostly I'm scared of fear itself. That if I'm scared it'll turn to panic and I'll lose control. And control is important. Its what makes me feel safe. The coping mechanism that enables me to over-rule the irrational thoughts and calm the physical symptoms that are so overwhelmingly unpleasant.

So I have an instinct to stay within my comfort zone. To avoid doing anything that may cause me to panic. To limit myself to the familiar, to the day-to-day activities that I can cope with without fear. But I have to fight it. The problem with a panic-preventative safety zone is that it continually shrinks. An unexpected twist to a routine activity on any given day can relocate that activity out of bounds. I can't live that way. In ever decreasing circles. I need my life. So I push through it. I chose the things I'm not willing to give up and force myself to do them. To face the fear. To control it. Repeat the activity over and over again until it becomes routine and easy.

Its a battle I have to fight in waves. I have long periods when its really not an issue at all. Other times like now, where its almost a daily battle to work through. I'm pretty self aware. I know that its a symptom of stress caused by a combination of factors. But I'm unwilling or unable to give up those things that are causing the stress.

We.

I feel the distance between us and it tears me apart. I remember how it used to be, the easy closeness I long to regain. I think of all the things I want to say to you, explain to you, wish that I could say to you, but don't know where to start. The mistakes I've made. Destruction I've caused. The power I hold in my hands, the potential to fix, cure, heal, wantonly disregarded throughout the course of an inexplicable mission of self-unfulfilment.

I cling to the oh-so-slightly uneasy truce we've arrived at. My flicker of hope reflected by you. It'll be OK, we're telling ourselves. I can reach you. Touch the depths of your soul without shock when I find what it contains. I try to open up myself to you. Dare you to remember how to love me. To still like me whatever it is that I am inside.

I wish you could know how much I need you. Love you. Miss you. The strength you impart to make me more than I am alone. How lost and confused I'm feeling inside. Scrabbling for answers. Desperate for resolution. Fearful of what lies ahead. My coldness a mask of self-preservation. Locking you out. Denial of the turbulence buried inside.

Before the crash

Soul destroying. So destructive. No matter how hard I try I do everything wrong. Even when I think I've fixed it I haven't. Pointless. Hopeless. Worthless. Doomed to failure. Try harder. Do better. Super-critical, iron-willed, unforgiving. I shatter and break under your ruthless scrutiny. My failures obvious and otherwise are aired and used against me. Evidence produced of the wrongs I have wrought. Each action examined, found wanting. Destined to fail at every turn.

How can you expect me to love you when you cause me to loathe myself so? I need help. To escape from the pain eating me from the inside out. The desire to hurt myself growing, strengthening with every week that passes. I feel pain coursing through my veins and want to slice them open to allow its release. Shadowy darkness lurking behind me. I can resist, but for just how long? Its waiting, watching, ready to absorb me. To suck me in. Drain me, smother me, surround me. I stand at the edge of a precipice waiting to fall. Each push nudges me closer. How much longer, further can I hold out? Destroy me. Reduce me. The more I hate myself the less I can feel for you.

New Beginnings

I'm finding it a little difficult to start. Lots of drafts. Nothing concrete. Its hard to know quite where to begin. At the beginning? I was born. My story or stories began. Some good, some bad. Many forgotten, some waiting to be shared. Well, that's that out of the way. Maybe now we can jump to the middle. I'll fill in the gaps along the way...

Today. Today I've been visiting friends. Old friends. Good friends. The sort you don't really need to explain anything to. Even if you haven't seen them for a year. You just pick up where you left off and they understand. We were catching up. Touching base. What used to be daily or at least several-times-a-week fill you in on every detail has been diluted by time and real life. But the ties remain. These are the people you turn to when things turn sour. And they have been. For me. Recently. But I don't really want to dwell on whats gone wrong. Not right at this moment anyway. Today I've been thinking about the things that pull people together, the things that make bonds strong.

A week ago my husband was driving myself and my children to a party when we arrived at the scene of a major motorway accident just moments after the crash. I have a little first aid knowledge. Not vast amounts, but some. Without really thinking of the consequences I jumped out of the car to see what I could do to help. I did what I could (not enough) and some time later returned to my car. The emergency services were yet to arrive but my husband was concerned that the position of the car in the middle of the road was a little precarious and felt it was time to move on, so we left. One car out of the several involved was particularly badly affected. Back, front, left, right. It was completely destroyed. It appeared unthinkable that anyone could possibly have survived. As I tended to a man on the side of the road, my husband had watched a young child being pulled from the wreckage. Distraught, but apparently not too badly hurt.

I don't really believe in god. I don't really know what I believe in. I believe in something intangible, I can't really define what it is. If anything I would describe myself as a "militant agnostic" as in - I don't know, but you don't either...I think that faith and beliefs can be a good thing, but in general am fairly anti-religion. In contrast my husband is very religious. Catholic with strongly held beliefs. A regular church-goer. A believer. As is my 7-year-old daughter. I don't pray. It doesn't fit with my unformulated beliefs. Who am I praying to? I send good vibes out when required into the ether, but it can feel a little uncertain, somewhat hit or miss. I hedge my bets. The things that seem most important to me I get my daughter to pray for. Who better than a child who is unwavering and dedicated in her beliefs? If there is a god surely he is more likely to listen to her than to me. Kind of like if there really was a Santa Claus he would be most certain to give presents to the child who had been kind and good the whole year round. One who truely believed with all their heart. Or Pratchets "small gods" - who grow stronger with each believer and are most likely to reward those who give them their strength.

I tell her to pray. Pray that the boy we see screaming at the roadside still has a parent. Pray that at least one of them wasn't in the car. That somehow, miraculously someone else survived. She says she's already said three prayers. But she'll say some more.

We drive on. Each of us more deeply affected than we are able to express. Its touched a chord. Several chords. We we so close. It could have been us. There are other parallels. The child was mixed race, like my own children. It feels like a wake-up call. Look what you have. Look how fragile life is. Enjoy every day. Appreciate each other. Take pleasure in what's good. Don't dwell on what's bad.

I follow the outcome of the crash on the news. Both of his parents were in the car, seriously injured but somehow they survived. His two-year old sister died at the scene. Its not the best outcome. Its not the worst.

We continue to think of this nameless family that we don't know. My husband and daugher pray for them. I send out my positive thoughts. All of us are haunted by what we saw. By how close we came. But it's pulled us together. United us in our sadness for a broken family and gratitude that it wasn't us. And its made us closer, because we realise that our bad stuff really isn't so bad after all.

Random utterings from a moody Becca...

Its late.

I can't sleep.

It was warm today, but the house is cold. I sit crossed legged, huddled up in a big jumper belonging to my husband. He's big - slim, but tall and broad. I like wearing his clothes. It makes me feel small, almost childlike as I push the sleeves up and they fall back to cover my hands.

It's quiet.

Both inside and out. No cars passing on the road outside. No TV. No children talking in their sleep.

I contemplate today. I contemplate everyday.

Tomorrow.

I think of the future and the past.

I don't really like to think. I like to crowd out my head with so much information that there's no space for actual thoughts. Facts and figures. Concepts. Ideals. Random stuff. Big stuff. Small stuff.

Anything to block out me.

I like to fall into bed so tired from the day that I'm asleep in moments.

I like to fill my days with people and conversation. To share, discuss. Laugh.

To be the person that they see.

If enough people believe it, maybe it becomes the truth.

I want to go outside and smoke.

I don't do that anymore. I haven't for a long time.

Except recently.

Occasionally.

I want to sit outside in the sun. At a festival. Listening to music. Wasted. Watching the world go by.

I don't do that anymore.

I want to disappear. Go away. For a day, a week, a year. To go where the mood takes me. To bask in the knowledge that everyone thinks I'm somewhere else. But I'm in none of the places where they think I am.

I don't do that anymore.

I want to talk to random strangers. Search until I find the link to someone I know or have been. There's always a connection. You just have to look hard enough. Talk for long enough.

I want to play. Skip. Dance. Laugh. Jump in fountains or lakes. Off the end of a pier. Or a plane.

I want to sleep without dreams. Wake feeling rested.

I want to be somewhere else.

Bambi near-miss and kicking lecturers

I had a cell regulation exam this morning. I like cell signalling and I like the lecturers - my comment on the course feedback sheet was that this subject was a little ray of sunshine in a miserable term.

But I don't like exams.

And memorising regulation pathways is hard. It's a bit like the "...and the knee bones connected to the..." song, only with loads of interacting pathways and 3 letter acronyms that all sound the same (BAD, BAX, RAS, RAF, PKA, PKB, PKC), need to phosphorylated or de-phosphorylated and are up or down regulated by a whole host of other factors. You get the idea.

And the exam was at 9am.

Which means leaving the house in the middle of the night to avoid sitting in a traffic jam outside Lewes for 2 hours.

So I'm driving along in the rain, in the dark (7.15am yuck) trying to decide whether src activates ras or PKC or both, when what looks like a dog runs across the road in front of me. It's a bit of a distance away so I brake a bit (just in case in changes it's mind and goes back the other way). All of a sudden a bigger dog, followed by an even bigger dog run out after the first little one. At this point I hit the brakes hard (being much closer this time) whilst simultaneously realising that they're not dogs and wondering whether the bigger deer are chasing the runaway baby or whether they purposefully send the little ones out first to check if the roads clear.

So, I'm keeping an eye on the left (the direction they headed in) when biggest of all big daddy deer charges across from my right. Emergency stop + fast deer = missing the front of the car by about 2 inches and soaring adrenalin levels (is that the alpha or beta receptors that are making my heart pound?). Oh my god - I nearly killed bambi's dad. That would make me the baddie. The villian. The evil hunter that all children hate. Maddie would have found out and cried. Fuck it - I would have cried. What do you do if you hit a deer? Do you call the police? A deer ambulence? The RSPCA? Do you stand there and watch it die? Does hitting a deer count as mitigating circumstances? Ok Becca - calm down, you didn't hit anything. The deers adrenalin rush is probably matching yours right now. Move on, forget it - think about the adrenalin pathway (receptor, g-protein, ACase, 3'5'cAMP...)

I get to uni by 8.30 (still dark) in time for a cup of tea before going into the exam. I buy tea, I turn around to get milk and sugar. I walk straight into some nutter who chose that exact moment to lean across me to pick up a napkin. DO THEY NOT KNOW HOW CLUMSY I AM???? Ouch, ouch pain ouch ouch hot tea is sloshing all over my hand. Idiot person apologises. I apologise for walking into them (?????? - why - some ingrained training - you've just burnt me because you didn't want to wait 3 seconds for me to move and I'm apologising. God - English people!). My hand has gone red and scalded looking. Does this count as mitigating circumstances? I rinse it under cold water and go into the exam.

I'm late so someone is sitting in my usual place. I like my usual place. I sit in the row in front. I open the exam paper. It's ok. It's hard but I can do it. I start writing. I turn the page. RNA polymerases?????????? Three days ago I (along with the rest of my tutor group) saw our tutor - he's one of the lecturers on this course. He's standing a couple of foot away from me reading the exam paper. He told us that the main questions would be on his and one other lecturers stuff as the third lecturer only gave 2 lectures and we'd already been tested on those. This made sense so I only gave a cursory glance to those 2 lectures during revision. Almost a third of the marks for the paper are on a question on one of those two lectures. Fuck. I give him an evil look and carry on writing.

Times up. We hand our papers in on the way out. Simon (the lecturer) smiles as I go past - "went ok?" he asks questioningly. I give him another evil look "I feel like kicking you" I state as I stomp away. We all drink tea (without getting burnt this time) and complain about unfair exam questions. Everyone else goes home. I finish my chemistry assignment that they all handed in on tuesday, cursing myself for always being becca-last-minute. I hand in the work (it's rubbish. I'm going to fail chemistry). I leave.

I bump into Simon on the way out. Tea has improved my mood. I stop to chat. "I looked at your paper. You've done alright" he says. We talk a while longer I leave. Alright? I obsess. Alright by my standards or by everyone elses? Simon knows that I like 80's and 90's and cry at anything below a first.Alright by everyone else's is a 50 or 60. What does alright mean??????

One exam down. Four more to go. Its not good. I have to listen to Aha the whole way home to make myself feel better.
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