from where you'd rather not be

Reading my last post is a nice little reminder of where I will soon be, but where I am? I am back in those withdrawal side effects that had stabilised. 'Withdrawal side effects' is a very clinical way of describing unhappiness. There is the pain, the temperature dysregulation and the inability to sleep. But there are also things not listed in the pamphlet in the box: memories of past embarrassments and burning shame, an angry voice in my head telling me that I am a failure and will not have the creative career I dream, that I will be no one and my life is over at 25. The violent visions that burst into my mind more than ever, ones I dare not repeat aloud or silently on here. Ones I keep locked away.

So this is where I write from. It's hard. It feels like it won't end, although everyone says it will (including science and fact and the past, the very recent past, my last blog post). But no, it feels like a purgatory my life won't escape from. It's alienating. I feel lonely in it, sometimes, all the time, although I have sweet G to talk to and who always believes in me and so can comfort me honestly.

I finished S's hat today - the trickiest adjustment I have ever made to a pattern and caused me a lot of grief, but it is done now and I am happy that it is my own work. The second sock is almost done as well, although is so different from the first one (improved, I will say) that I will have to remake the first when I can be bothered. I am a bit over these socks. Although this one is very cute - smaller, neater, sweeter, and with a pomegranate coloured heel and toe. Gryffindor colours, really.