Mab of Dream

I am my own worst enemy. Worse, the rest of the world have me to contend with when it comes to sorting out my shite. A series of daily panic attacks, vision going blurry, leg's going and my sudden tendency to burst into tears at the drop of a hat mean that just about everyone around me is on Operation Calm Johnny Down. The least I can do is bloody co-operate.

Today was a good day really. It's not so much that things calmed down at work, but that everyone was out except me and Caroline. Caroline isn't so stressed, so talked incessantly at me until I just gave up and slowed down. I only managed one moment of absolute plot losing - I was thirsty so I went down to the refectory and bought a hot chocomilk. I got canting with Jill about what she was wearing to her party tonight, paid her for the drink and forgot to take it with me. It was an hour and half later when I thought, 'Why am I so thirsty?', when it occurred to me that there wasn't an empty cup on my desk.

I can only concentrate on one thing at a time right now. My life has condensed down into work and dissertation, maybe Grove but as a member only until this is past. I went to pieces in the early hours of last Saturday morning, in the Mods room, so everyone there has been very slowly and carefully finding out what it is that I do and re-allocating it. If I was them, I'd be looking for their David Gilmour around about now.

FT Kate came over soon as she heard the words 'thousand yard stare' and the tone of my voice, and she tidied my room - which was a big job. People talk to me in simple lines, 'Jo, did you get the post?' 'When?' 'Just now, when you took the keys with you. Can you remember where you went?' 'I had a fag.' 'Have you still got the keys?' 'Ermmm... *rumage rumage* Yes.' 'But there was no post?' And I honestly can't remember. This is what folk are up against right now. As I left work, I've never had so many people tell me to get some rest this weekend. 'What are you up to the weekend?' 'Dissertation.' 'Right... anything else?' 'Nope.' 'Maybe you should... oh! And get some sleep.' 'Ok.'

I feel like one of those spiders who, having been given some intoxicating or hallucinogenic substance, starts weaving strange or broken webs.

I am co-operating, after a fashion, though my mind is more 'It's No Good Trying' (see link in title) than really losing it. I understand what I don't understand. I still have the check-list there but, whereas it used to make sense, now I argue against it. Take this evening - I'd just done some work on my dissertation, after a good day at work, and I'm sitting here in this beautifully tidy room, when my phone goes in the other room. It's Rob. He's seen the full moon and he's thinking on me. He hopes I'm alright. I sat on my bed and let the moonlight drift over me. I got up smiling, feeling full, but when I looked at my work again, I couldn't remember what I'd been working on.

So I thought I'd go and see what's been added to the photo gallery - no brain stuff, just delight, while I find where I was again. But I couldn't see any additions, so the panic started coming. How come no-one's asked for the photos in my folder? What if no-one is adding stuff, because they don't know how and it's just all waiting there for when I finish this? Right, can I do both? So I starting adding pics, when the connection went on my dial-up and I lost all of the upload. Simultaneously, I'm trying to up-load the pics in my folder from the Wolves Moot lot and that connection breaks. Is this the Goddess trying to reinforce what the others have said regarding anything remotely mod-like? I should e-mail Mods... I should ask what's happening... no, I shouldn't, it'll look like I'm pressuring them, doubting them, like I'm modding when I shouldn't be... then the descent really starts and I'm in tears again.

That's what it's like here. I have to constantly stop, catch myself and breathe. The slightest thing sets me off and it either ends in tears, despair, anxiety or, at the other end of the spectrum, calm, laughter, love. It's not predictable. Someone writes with a problem and I can either be grateful for the chance to do something useful/come out of myself, or I can panic. It depends on the hour or even the minute. I have an inbox which was full of people trying to reach me, tell me it's ok, letting me off the hook with things I promised to do. Georgia wrote to the Grove telling folk to e-mail her instead of me for things they would ordinarily e-mail me for. Caroline intercepts my calls at work and deals with whatever is there instead. Cerr has told me to stop thinking on the website - she is speaking to Nimue, Dani and Draig and it will all be sorted. My text-memory on my phone keeps filling up and folk 'phone. I know for certain that there is a protective wall around me, sheltering me from everything but myself.

And myself. That's a weird one. There's a vast difference between being ok and fighting your inner demons, and not being ok and fighting your inner demons. When this is sorted, I'll try to explain that a little better. I can actually step out of myself 99% of the time and assess the situation. At those moments, I can even see what I should do to clear just a little bit more murk to find my way back. I just did it. And the response was to actually write a blog so folk aren't guessing and not to try to second guess them.

Ocean wrote me the most amazing e-mail earlier. It's the first thing I've printed out for ages, because I wanted to read it over and over again. It's strange, because she's saying only a bit more than FT Kate, Cerr, Georgia or the others have said, but as I read it I felt it go in. Bloody Virgo knew how to argue in terms that a Virgo would understand. Four A4 pages worth of it. It was as if she had stepped right in here with me and had a good long look at the view, before stepping out of my head and interpreting it all her own way. How the fuck she did that, I'll never know! I'm a bit stunned after reading it, to be honest, but it's slotted a lot of things into place. It made me let go enough to write this blog anyway, instead of afretting that I haven't finished the Vegas blogs. I've just sat and re-read it another twice and half wish she'd posted it to the Grove or an open letter in her blog or something, so I could show people and say, look, it's like this.

I'm extraordinarily grateful for those who deliberately or intuitively know how to react to my strangeness right now. When it's just a case of, 'It's ok, cariad', and then it's gone. There's still a lightning brain underneath all of this going at top speed, but it's writing this dissertation. I have to get into the slipstream of it, because if I'm pulled out, there's just this very confusing, slightly hostile world that I don't know how to be with, while knowing that it's actually the extreme opposite of hostile. It's actually the biggest ever demonstration of my friends closing ranks to protect me throughout history; I keep glimpsing it, but it's so hard to actually see it from where my brain is.

Then Ocean went and told me academically.

Clever girl.

The me outside of me is nodding with a respectful smirk on my face; the me inside of me doesn't quite know what just hit her. She's just working it out.

I'm ok again now. Between Ocean and this blog, the world is quiet again.

yours
Mab
xxxx