Two households, both alike in dignity...

I won’t talk about how they had their phones out, or that they were talking the whole way through the film.

But the group of girls next to us at last nights Secret Cinema stood out to me because of one comment.

“Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied!”

Romeo exclaims at Juliet after they have been kissing in the pool in Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet.

Prose written 500 years ago, prose written to convey that Romeo is a man in love, having just met Juliet and and she’s going to leave because her family are calling for her.

Prose written in to convey that Romeo doesn’t know where he stands, what happens next, how they can make their forbidden love last.

“Hashtag Me Too”

Yelled one of the girls in the group.

No. No no no.

The hashtag #MeTop has risen from the internet to become a powerful way to empower women to speak out about the sexual harassment and abuse they have suffered at the hands of men. The most high profile of which are the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer of Fox News and even Democrat Al Franken. It’s given women a public space for something that is spoken of in private conversations. It gives us a chance to say “I hear you” and “that happened to me too.”

So for someone so ignorant to yell out a hashtag synonymous with empowerment of victims at such an inappropriate time was disheartening. And so maddening.

If a man was pushing himself on a woman and she wasn’t consenting and he said “don’t leave me so unsatisfied” then yes, that's sexual harassment. He would have no right to demand she comply, think only of his needs. It’s all about context.

And for context, Juliet Capulet was consenting (although the fact she’s supposed to be 12 in the play is troubling, but things were different then and have mostly changed) and she was leaving because she was torn between the love of her life and her family duties. She didn’t want him to be discovered. The women who don’t speak out about sexual harassment aren’t protecting their harassers; they’re protecting themselves.

Has #MeToo divided women? Yes. Because women are not a homogenous group. There are bound to be differences of opinion, that's what makes us so human.

Perhaps that woman uses scorn and misappropriation as a defence mechanism. You can’t know that about a person until you talk to them. That’s what #MeToo has allowed us to do.

Islands

No man is an island, entire of itself...

But this woman sits on her island, within an island, afraid to dip her toes in.

The safety zone expands, slowly. With help.
Forcing myself to walk slower, not to hurry away like a suspect at the scene of a crime.

The leaves fall everywhere; feels like the sky is falling in.
And everything is so loud and bright away from my island.

My ears ring from a simple trip to the outside world. 
I'm relieved to be back in the muted colours of my house.
In the quiet.
In here I can control the volume. 

The word "anxiety" feels like an understatement for the feelings of catastrophe that creep into my brain.

It's hard not to think that I myself am a catastrophe. 
One that can't be helped anymore.

Every stupid reason I've had for wanting to die or kill myself

I'm not good enough

At sport

At running

At the gym

At love

At relationships 

At friendships

At family 

At work 

At life 

I bought new clothes

I didn't have new clothes

I have too much stuff 

I ate too much food

I threw up food

I tried to starve myself 

I drank too much 

Someone I knew died

Someone I didn't know died

Someone I knew got sick

Someone I didn't know got sick 

A natural disaster happened

An unnatural human rights disaster happened

I don't have enough friends on Facebook

or followers on Twitter 

or followers on Instagram 

I don't have enough friends in life

I'm not a very good friend

I forgot to text back

I forgot to reply to that email

I was supposed to do that task and I didn't

I can't read all the books

Or listen to all the music

Or watch all the films

In the world

I can't grow my hair 

I can't grow my nails

When I grow my nails they break

I always have damaged cuticles

My boobs aren't even

My boobs aren't big enough

My hips are wide

My thighs are fat

I'm fat

My feet are wide but small and I can't find heels that fit

I don't suit [insert item of clothing]

I can't do winged eyeliner 

My makeup usually runs 

I'm short 

I can't see over crowds

People can't see me in a crowd 

People push in front of me in a queue 

I always have a headache 

I keep getting sick 

I take too much medication and I'm taking up NHS money and time 

I don't want marriage

I don't want kids 

There is and was context to everyone single one of these thoughts, ranging from "they don't deserve that to happen to them it should have happened to me" to "I will never be good enough so I should just end it". But the common theme is that my depression and anxiety plays havoc with my reasoning and will use anything it can get its hands on to fuck with me. 

It always comes down to being a burden. Being a waste of space. Believing with my whole head and a heavy heart that the world would be better off without me. 

It comes down to being selfish in a whole other way. I read this list back and I am struck by how self-centred it all sounds. But we can only view the world as ourselves, so our default settings are self-centric.

September was, and is annually, Suicide Prevention Month. Back in August, Sam (my now ex-boyfriend) knew something was up one night and he called me. He asked me what was wrong and I vaguely told him but I didn't want to go into it. I had already made up my mind that I was going to overdose when I got home. I didn't want to burden him with my unimportant problems. 

So he talked to me about Game of Thrones. He made me laugh. We debated certain references and theories.

And he brought me back to life.

I didn't overdose in August. And now, at the end of September, I have made it through another month. Sometimes with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and other mental health issues, you have to take it one month, one week, one day or even one hour at a time.

That hour might be awful. It might be horrific. 

But the next hour might not be so bad.

If you need help to get through that hour, call someone. or text. or email. or write it all down if that helps. Listen to a music track you love. Maybe read a poem or a chapter of your favourite book. There are so many reasons to be alive. 

You might find that you don't want to die anymore. 

The day I was reminded that 'Casualty' is not real life

When my Nanna phoned me at the pub last night, I thought I was in trouble for not calling her. I went straight on the defensive: I was sorry, I hadn't had a chance, I'd barely had a lunch break, I'd had meetings all day, then I was at a football match and now I was at the pub. 

And then I let her speak and she asked me to come to hers and stay the night because she was getting chest pains. 

My heart skipped a beat, though not in a medically dangerous way that hers might have been doing. 

Just the day before she'd said she was feeling "permanently under the weather". 

Had she jinxed herself? 

I practically fled the pub, and was storming the wrong way in Bethnal Green when I got a reassuring call from my mum. Don't panic. Yes the doctor said to go to hospital, but she had had these pains before and there are complications with diabetes that we couldn't know for sure that this was a serious heart problem. 

I calmed down. My cantankerous grandmother was refusing to go to hospital but she had good reason not to panic the same way I was. 

After a change of shoes at home (heeled boots are not practical if you need to run around after an invalid) and picking up my stuff I arrived at hers. She was gasping for a cup of tea, and it wasn't long until she hit the wine as usual. So far so normal. 

She was breathless and groaning. I hooked her up to a TENS machine and we watched Silent Witness. We went to bed at midnight and I got a lie in, as I was working from home. 

She'd slept fitfully, and phoned the doctors who sent an ambulance. The pain was still there, and they needed to be sure she wasn't having a "cardiac episode".

The paramedics were great. Cheery, pleasant, accidentally turning on the ECG machine with an automated voice exclaiming they were "starting CPR".

No one outside of my family appreciates the hysterics we go into when explaining how my uncle once tipped my nan out of her wheelchair, giving her a black eye. They transported her very carefully in the wheelchair and subsequently the trolley bed. 

So, we're at hospital. I'm waiting in the relatives room. It can only be described as a roomy broom cupboard with a sink and a sofa. I shared with two women whose parents were in. They were in their 40s or 50s. They discussed Cornwall and how hard these doctors work. They blamed Theresa May for the shortage of doctors. One by one they got called to go into their loved ones. 

I sat in the broom cupboard for an hour before someone asked if I was Joan's granddaughter.

A quick aside: when the paramedics called my nan Joan I thought she'd given them a false name. I had forgotten that's her real name, not Alison (her middle name ) or any variation of Nan I come up with (nan, nanna, nanny, trouble, mischief) 

She was in a gown, on a bed. She has a chest infection (Again? Still?) and she needs to be admitted for intravenous antibiotics. 

This soon became oral antibiotics because her right bundle branch block wasn't too bad, and the chest infection was likely causing the pain. 

Then there might be fluid on the lung. 

An ultrasound revealed there wasn't, not really? 

And finally another blood test revealed that yes it was raised (not sure what, something to do with her heart and her blood?) but not significantly enough to keep her in and we could go merrily on our way. After I'd waited half an hour to pick up her two new medications. 

As I write, dear reader, she's drinking tea and being fussed over by her cats. And granddaughters. 

In Casualty everything is much more dramatic. Because it's a drama. 

But life isn't just a drama. It's a comedy as well. 

Back home I announced Claire would be coming over for dinner. And Nan said "oh, to see you?"

"No Nan! To see you! You've just been in hospital!" 

The Handmaid's Tale of the Destruction of Democracy

Warning: spoilers for Hulu's/Channel 4's The Handmaid's Tale

"In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."

Things have never been so good, right? It's 2017 and more than ever before women are MPs, there is same-sex marriage and a muslim Mayor of London. Our country has never been so diverse, so progressive.
So much on the brink of regression.

10 people could be all it takes. 10 people could be the difference between the rights of gays and lesbians to marry and adopt, or not. 10 people could be the difference between the legal right to abort, or not.

No, not really. They're only 10 people, you cry. 
No, really. Because 10 people are currently the difference between Theresa May forming a government, pushing through policies that will make people on benefits poorer, make pensioners poorer, make food banks more necessary and keep people in debt for years - or fighting every policy battle endlessly for the next 5 years.

Is this where it starts? Where the tightening of security and the questioning of human rights begins?

If you haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, I implore you to read it.
If you're not the reading kind, then watch the new TV series. It's right here on All 4. 

And if you don't want to read it or watch it because you've heard it described as "feminist" or a "woman's story", then I roll my eyes at you so hard they fall out of their sockets, roll down the drain, into the sewer system and end up in a reservoir so pretty and clean I that I can't believe my eyes... 

The Handmaid's Tale is a story about the dismantling of democracy, of the ripping away of civil liberties and human rights. Yes of the society we've built, which I'm not always in favour of, but we're creating equality too. (slowly)
It tackles the stigma that gay people face, the idea that they are 'unnatural'. 
And the latest episode even includes FGM, not originally in the book, but that women and girls across the world face - with an estimated 137,000 in England and Wales. 

I hold my hands up and say I'm a hypocrite. I dismiss things for being too "girly", too "manly". These are stereotypes of behaviours that I have had drilled into me from a young age that I need to undo. 
There is really only one kind of behaviour - "human".

We all deserve equal opportunities, regardless of age, race, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, or gender.

We have the opportunity right now to stand up and oppose the erosion of human rights. 

A word about common sense and how sometimes I don't have any

So, occasionally, I show remarkable lack of common sense. 

This week I got sunburnt in a record 40 minutes. Trying to tan my legs, I instead burnt my shoulder.

I shaved my armpits and then put on an extra strong deodorant. The instructions, which I hadn't read, said not to do this. 

Now my armpits are grossly red and infected. 

 I went to the supermarket and did all my shopping, only to realise at the till I didn't have my purse. 

And then there's the common sense I lack due to my mental health.

Like did I pick up my antidepressants?

I did? Ok, where are they? If I were a box of drugs, where would I hide? 

Turns out, they're in the drawer they're supposed to live in. 

The common sense I possess is twisted. 

"I can't self harm because Sam will see."

"I cant kill myself yet, I've got theatre tickets and a holiday booked." 

This common sense is accompanied with an utter sense of worthlessness that contradicts the ideas that my existence needs to continue until such & such a date. Because I don't want to disappoint people. 

Wouldn't killing myself do exactly that? 

No. When I get these suicidal thoughts, they are about protection. Protecting me, from the pain. But a lot about protecting the people I love from the hurt I could cause them. As if the hurt of killing myself could be any less than what I could inflict on them throughout life. 

I lack common sense. But I still have some compassion. And I'm directing to myself. And my poor armpits. 

And nothing will ever show my lack of common sense than putting potatoes on the radiator to dry...

Talking about last night

Last night I was the kind of "crazy" that people take pains to avoid on the street. 

The kind muttering to themselves. Twitching and moaning. In a world of their own, not in an adorable distracted way.

  

last night

It was burning, and I was crying and shaking, but I couldn't stop it. I was wringing my hands violently as if to shake the itchiness out through my fingers. At one point I can pulling on my right index finger because it was on fire with itching. 

It started with the crying. I felt despondent, I lay protracted on my bed wondering why my brain was so slow and making everything so hard. 

I tried to harm myself by pulling my hair out but it didn't hurt enough. 

I used a self harming alternative which succeeded in making my arm sting. 

Then I got a sudden burst of energy and I tidied up my room. 

And then that's when the itching started. 

First it was my arm where I'd drawn all over it in pen in a bid to not cut.

Then it spread up my arm. And across my chest to the other arm. 

And then I was scratching my arms as if I was possessed. 

It started spreading to my legs and my face and I decided there was nothing for it but to run a bath. 

A shallow puddle of cool water. I lowered myself in hurriedly and I would never normally have a bath that cold but I needed relief.

The act of getting my thoughts together to run a bath had helped me become more lucid. 

I scratched a bit more in the water but it helped me to calm down. 

I went downstairs afterward to take an antihistamine. And then I phoned my boyfriend. 

this morning

This is a more tangible side effect of withdrawal than the headaches, or the anxiety. You can see the damage it does immediately. The sunburn effect I experienced on my body last night faded to leave these bruises. I write this the day after and I itch. My hip itches, my hands itch, my head itches. 

And these bruises will fade, and my sanity with it? 

1 more day.