Writing on the Wall

Thank you for your birthday wishes.
One of the presents i got for my birthday was a book by David Shrigley called 'KILL YOUR PETS'. I really like David Shrigley. This book is full of slogans that kind of make sense but you have to read them a couple of times to get the joke. The book is in a small square format exactly the size of a CD case. This adds to the difficulty in reading the slogans as they are all written in large black capital scrawl. I find this funny also.
When i was a kid there was some graffiti on a wall opposite the shops near where we lived. It said:

IPSWICH FOR UNDERPANTRY AND BEWTY

i always thought that when i grew up, i would understand what that meant. [I also thought that girls grew up they had to wear tan tights]
More recently, i went to an exhibition where you could scribble on wallpapered walls (i copied the line above).
How cool would it be if someone somewhere reading this post knew what that meant???!!!***
Even better: what if you were the person who scrawled that on a wall near my old house.....or any wall, anywhere for that matter!
That would be great if that happened.

Prozac Nation

Why am I awake at 4am?
I think it's the drugs (this effect rings a bell from last time).
However, i am not lying in bed riddled with irrational fears about everything from my life insurance to the apocolypse, so this is an improvement. The last couple of nights, i've found myself thinking creatively in my 'awake period', so tonight i thought i'd get up and make the most of it.
I watched a programme years ago (when Prozac was bigger news) where Bernard Sumner-who admitted to being slightly depressive- took a Prozac trial to see if it affected his creativity. The result was that it did! When he took Prozac and felt better he found that he wasn't so bothered about writing great songs....Personally i think depression can be crippling and destructive as well as a way to convert pain into art.
Yesterday i saw a tabloid newspaper headline with the catch-phrase above. I didn't bother going over to read it because it was inevitably going to be a load of bollocks.
I sound like some kind of advocate for pharmaceuticals, but i assure you i'm not. The next phase is to find an alternative to taking them - cue rebirth as nutritional/environmental/plant-based/religious transformation takes place. [Joking about the religious thing.]
I've just eaten a banana.
This may seem uninteresting, but i ate it because i was hungry. During my recent episode, i was convinced that i was waking up because of a blood sugar drop. My rationale for this was that i eat so much chocolate during the day. So when i was waking up with "the fear" i was caning bananas to try and get some mental and physical balance back. I also made myself a compilation CD with songs on it that i can only now describe as comfort songs. I played it over and over again to try and distract myself from the thoughts that were on constant replay.
I called it Bananas at Bedtime.
Anyway i'm going back to bed now. It's my birthday tomorrow and i've invited about thirty people over so i need some sleep. I don't need my CD, i feel better now. This is good.

Back (Like James Brown)

I'm back. In my new house, broadband connected, bring it on.
I'm proud of myself really: i managed to move house whilst feeling like shite; i took the drugs like a good girl and they worked; i've got the house in some kind of order and i have returned to work today. I did not lay down and give up. i will not be beaten.
The doctor gave me a leaflet about stress and anxiety today. As she was looking through her stock she read out the extraneous titles, "Obsessive Compulsive Disorders', 'Voices'... Oh, here we are 'Coping with stress'!"
Perhaps she was trying to put it all into some perspective for me.
The only physical symptom remaining is that if i'm feeling nervous, my left arm and leg go a bit numb. They don't completely lose feeling, but they feel weird. I need to pinch myself and say 'I don't care' like the counsellor told me to. This really works. Power of positive speech. Let nothing in my life be negative (with or without drugs) i will strive not to let negativity overtake me- either my own or that of others.
This morning as i looked out of my window, people on my new street were putting out their bins for collection (all at the same time funnily). An old lady across the road came out in a full length maroon dressing gown. As she dropped off her bin, she looked across the street and smiled and lifted her hand to greet her neighbour. This is not familiar territory for me. I found myself thinking that living here is like being part of a David Lynch movie- but the birds in my garden are real and nothing bad is going to happen because i won't let it.