After many months I am back! Hope I still have some of my readers and if I do thankyou SO much for your incredible patience
Putting the ghosts of my family’s disbelief regarding the abuse I suffered to rest was a long and arduous process. The wounds inflicted have scarred now, but the skin will never be the same, breaking open and spilling secrets and sadness at the slightest touch. In this battle however, I found a steadfast ally in my mother, who would stay up until darkness fell and stars peeped shyly out behind the curtain, talking again and again and again through my feelings and hers regarding the family we loved so much, and had been hurt by so irreversibly.
Those nights on occasion became havens of nostalgia, both of us reaching back through the years to grasp at happier times. Family Christmases flew before our eyes. The moment my grandmother welcomed us into her house then bustled off to the kitchen to busy herself over a succulent Christmas dinner. The rasp of my grandfather’s comforting cardigans against our skin as we hugged him tight and breathed him in. The glorious chaos of my cousins, always late, entry, of flying with them to the tree to hunt out the delicious chocolates and swirling sweets hidden in lovingly knitted miniature stockings. Memories cracked open with a pow and a pop, echoing the bangs and cracks emitted by long past Christmas crackers, silly hats and sillier jokes passed around between loaded forkfuls of warm comfortable food. Granddad in a moment of macho pride wielding the large pudding knife as though it were a spear he had just felled a buffalo with, handing out juicy pieces of pie and tangy alcoholic puddings.
Finally as the many memories became spent Mum and I would curl up together on the sofa, tea in each of our hands, crying and smiling, loving and hating, reminiscing and grieving, all in equal amounts. When the sandman eventually took us I would curl up in my bed clinging tight to my dog as though I could clutch those memories that fell fast through my fingers like sand, childishly convinced that if I held onto them long enough, in the morning they would become not past, but present. And what a gift that would be…
Last edited by Buttons. : 28-06-2010 at 07:00 PM.
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
It's still as brilliant as ever!
I think you should be incredibly proud of yourself. I love the imagery you use; the crackers/memories, for example.
Keep it up :) x
There are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us,
but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun
and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not
see them for what they are. If nobody speaks of
remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?"
Katyyy. I am not neglecting your thread (and am currently hyper, so this explains the random commentttt) I just plan to read it after revision, because then I won't push facts about the formation of waterfalls out of my mind with your creative imagery (took me ages to write that word) aaaand splendiferous language :)
Btw this will be a short thread as I've decided to combine anomi with welcome to the show as the time frame for anomie isn't long enough to stand on it's own, However the post unit area of my life is long enough so that will be the next chapter when this one ends :)
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
Despite grief for the past and fear of the future, life moves on. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes bad. In my case, in the time period following the confrontation with my grandmother and the memory laden insomnia, the other aspects of my life went from bad to worse. If I had thought school was hell before, it was as of nothing to now. Slowly as grief insidiously infected each and every aspect of my life, I began to lose whatever grip upon reality I had managed to retain, chiefly for appearances’ sake, in school.
I would become lost so far into flashbacks that my friends were fearful I would never return. I put upon them a burden that no fourteen year old should have to shoulder. They rose to the challenge magnificently. Unfortunately, however, all the love, maturity and care in the world cannot save a person from themselves, or their past.
Gradually I had found myself cutting deeper and deeper, borrowing more and more first aid supplies from the school nurse, losing the ability to care about whether I pushed the metal down through flesh, bone, nerve or sinew. I began again to collect various pills, one at a time until I had a fairly deadly little collection. Unlike the crisis situations these actions became almost the actions of a robot on autopilot, a dark and dangerous mindset in which I planned suicide as cruelly and coldly as any murder, as calmly as considering a shopping list.
Thankfully, although love cannot save a person, it can however give them enough pause for thought to persuade them to save themselves, if only initially to spare others the pain of shouldering an agony they themselves felt unable to measure up to. This was how it was with me in the early hours of my suicidal tendencies. I would count out the pills over and over again on autopilot for hour after hour in the night, my sleep deprived brain settling on the illogical solution to this painful problem, but time and time again love for my friends, my mother, my father, my dog all managed to break through the numbness, the distance, and force my hand towards help.
At these times Mum would sit with me until I felt safe. Whether I talked or not didn’t matter, she would merely press a cup of tea into my hand, invite me into her arms and put on a DVD until I felt safe enough to manage my emotions alone.
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
Oheeeees Katy, I can't believe you started writing another part and I didn't notice D: You should seek to tell me whenever this happens, okay? :O
Also, I like the title, I actually know what it means ;D Now I'm finished my exams and am an unemployed bum, I shall devote all my time to reading your story :P
By the way, basically copying what everyone else has been saying, but your writing is actually amazing, it is so brilliantly written and it is very hard for writers to touch the emotions of a reader, but you go above and beyond that, touching every emotion a human could possibly have. :) <3
I'm gonna tap him like a maple tree. I'm gonna search him for some syrups. I'm gonna be having sex with him.
Some details in this bit may be slightly inaccurate as I didn't write much in my diary about this at the time a it hit a bit too close to the bone, so almost all is purely from memory. I'm sure Zed will correct me if I get it wrong though Also I do have permission from Zed to write about this which is ace of her considering how personal this stuff is so yes, round of applause to Zed
‘I’m in hospital. I drank something toxic. Passed out. Can you come and visit me?’ My blood ran cold. All thoughts of my own potential suicide flew, for the time being at least, out of the window. I couldn’t believe that Zed, one of the most important people in my life had been hurting so badly and I had failed to see it, or to stop it. And more importantly, that she had been hurting so badly at all.
Seeking out my mother I made it clear that I needed to find the time and a way of visiting the hospital where Zed, after being stabilised medically, had been moved to an adult psychiatric unit. Without hesitation, the moment it was physically possible, Mum drove me first to a shop, where I bought Minstrels, a chocolate item both Zed and I were addicted to. I also ran around my room in a frenzy of finding posters and comedy items that I thought might make the stay more bearable. Then at last, we were heading for the hospital.
The outside of the unit was a surprise to me. I expected a colder, more clinical feel to the place, reminiscent of old Victorian asylums. In actual fact it was merely an average, run of the mill brick building, no signs other than locked doors of the pain pulsing within it’s walls. After Mum had dropped me off I re-shouldered my bag and began to make my way through the maze of doors. After a number of false starts and confusion I eventually managed to breach the ward, where I met a friendly male nurse, who after checking I hadn’t smuggled in knives, paper clips or weapons of mass destruction finally allowed me to see Zed.
I found her in her room, far more calm and her usual self than I had expected, listening to her ever present ipod, head bobbing slightly with the music. I knocked and approached, giving her the biggest hug I could muster. The feel of her arms clinging on a little longer than usual was the only betrayal of the situation we had found ourselves in. I handed over my various gifts and sat down opposite Zed, unsure of quite what to do or say. I wanted to apologise for not seeing this coming, for not preventing her pain, but the apology would have been more for me than for her. Meanwhile I took in her appearance.
Previously I had rarely, if ever seen her without her hair covered in accordance with the Muslim faith, and with flowing rivers of raven black hair, she was stunning. We munched on Minstrels for a while, I ‘edited’ her patient chart, including renaming the ward as Mars or similar and giving nurses some more ‘interesting names’.
We also laughed about the fact that while items like staples and paperclips were forbidden, they had also left a drawing pin in the notice board. Later on in the visit together we also discovered in the pile of posters I had a brought a picture of a hamster hiding in a mug with the caption ‘leave me alone, I’m having a crisis’. This was too much irony for us to ignore and I hung the sign outside the door, only to be reprimanded severely by a drawn older woman with a bitter twist of a mouth. Apparently putting comedic signs on doors was just shy of deserving the death penalty.
Eventually despite the unexpected amount of fun both Zed and I found you could have on a psychiatric unit I had to leave, promising I would be back as soon as possible. As a parting gift we swapped ipods, thinking to break the monotony of unit life and school respectively with the discovery of new songs.
As I left and turned to say goodbye to Zed one more time, I wondered, if we can still laugh and hug and love like that in a place like this, why on earth can neither of us seem to push through the pain enough to live?
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back. Sydney Carter
By the way, basically copying what everyone else has been saying, but your writing is actually amazing, it is so brilliantly written and it is very hard for writers to touch the emotions of a reader, but you go above and beyond that, touching every emotion a human could possibly have. :) <3
You said it better than I did =)
And and, as I said, I was interested to see your point of view of that situation. You write it better than I ever could =) Although there's one thing that sticks out in my mind that's incorrect but I'll leave yours as it is 'cause it sounds better....
I still have my edited patient chart somewhere =)
The only time you will find real light is when you're searching in the dark..
Also I do have permission from Zed to write about this which is ace of her considering how personal this stuff is so yes, round of applause to Zed 
