‘Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.’ –Janis Joplin

Got to live up to my reputation for being brutally honest, right? I feel so low. I know I post mostly positive posts and come across as having my shit together. I do, most of the time. I can’t pretend that in a couple of months, something has shifted in me. It’s been big enough to derail me – the crustal plates in my mind and body have moved too much and too soon. I have to lean on something to stop me from falling, falling to where? and on what?   What if I just fall and never stop.  How does it feel? I sit back. It’s gnarled at my insides. I have to remind myself to pull the carbon monoxide out with each breath. 

Why now? I have so much to live for, to be happy for. Is this the nature of mental illness? My inner Iago is a great trickster -it can make the most amazing opportunities, experiences that are going to happen or are happening seem like a mirage. It loves to betray me. It loves to jinx me. It loves to beat me. I know it is him but he is good at hiding.

 He is sly and duped my lazy /starved neurotransmitters into believing that they can’t take one tiny step over, from one synapse to another.

 COURAGE YOU IDIOTS!

Man up! I’m on enough pills. I should be a billion dollar comedian with all the serotonin and dopamine whizzing round my brain.

I had a full-blown panic attack this morning. I had to ask G to come upstairs and hold me. This has worked before. I then got up and cleaned up and hit the gym. That helped but it came back with reinforcements. So , picture me mentally rummaging around my wellness toolbox to find the right tool to smooth over the grave bits. The ones that live between my ribs – that defy gravity…

It’s not my heart racing, it’s that space high up in the middle of my first four ribs. It’s like every breath I take is halved- stolen. I have the need to break free, to implode- no, explode from this human body of mine and let the energy disperse. It won’t leave willingly. I need to pick up my sharpest knife , slice myself open and let all the carnival loose.

The freaks can’t stay. I want to accept them but they repulse me. I am scared that if they stay within me, I may become them and I will feel this way forever.

I’m just typing. Loads of errors. I’m hoping I can write myself out of a panic attack. Nothing else seems to have worked.. I am trying to take the least amount of medication as possible. 

I’m due to have a Skype call with a lady who will be making my jewelled bouquets in 20 minutes. I need to send the freaks on errands 

Legless man,go and find a pair.

Fortune teller – read up on everyone’s star signs- dust off your glass ball. Go find some mystery somewhere else.

Obese lady- waddle down the lane and get some organic shit down your pipe hole- and make sure you stop by the pastry shop. Hopefully, you will be too full to waddle back 

Claw hand man – practice jerking off and walking sideways – right, no just a bit more to the right, oops, sorry! I didn’t see the cliff. 

ALL OF YOU – I MEAN EVERYONE. VACATE. THE CARNIVAL HAS SHUT DOWN. 

 They beg me. They have nowhere else to go. Pleading, I can’t turn my eyes away from them despite their defects. I look at them. How can I leave them stranded with nobody to want them and nowhere to go? 

So I write. I tell them I need to cool off. I need them to just go and find something to do and they can come back once I’ve had time to be alone. Once I find peace. Once I can breathe again. I could never make them homeless.

They are freaks. Yes, they scare me but they are my freaks. Sometimes they listen to me and respect me. Let me feel a bit of peace. They come back quieter now and get on with preparing for the next show. I just need to reign them in every now and then.

It’s going to be alright. The order has been restored. I write to live- I write for peace.

I am.

I am.

I am.

I am …

I am…

and that is good enough.