Hubris.co.nz

I wrote this four years ago, on March 16 2003, and I’m reprinting it now because it is a reminder of how far I’ve come, and how even when I’m having a crappy day, at least it’s not like that. And because I feel really disconnected from the girl who wrote this, and that is a good thing.

Thank you two, I love you.

And so in the past couple of sessions, I mentioned to Kalpana that I’ve been having more down spells lately than I feel are right, given that I’m supposed to be on the mend, I’m swallowing my 20mg of cipramil every day, I’m getting my expensive therapy and I have a job that meets all the criteria that I realised through my sessions with her that I was looking for. I mention to her that maybe I should think about upping my meds, but then come up with a thousand reasons why I’ve been getting the down spells, and she defaults to my feelings, saying “well, we should keep an eye on it, definately”.

I ache. I ache all over, hollow and empty and just so fucking lonely, and it feels like nothing anyone should ever have to feel, but it’s very familiar to me, and it always keeps coming back, and I want to call out for help, but what can anyone do to plug the gap? Nothing. Nothing at all. And so I let myself sink lower and lower. I forget to fill my cipramil prescription and then it’s the weekend and my chemist with thelovely old chinese man who gets it faxed in for me is closed. I find myself on Saturday night sitting in the kitchen crying on Bopha and Allison’s shoulders, because even if this is PMS, I cannot go on feeling like this for a couple of days every month, and Allison agrees with me that I need to get my meds adjusted. I thought cipramil was great because it stopped me from feeling suicidal while still letting me have SOME feelings, unlike Fluoxtine, but then it came back. I could feel myself shutting down again as basic functions fell by the wayside. And each time I have one of these episodes, it comes on much much faster than the last.

Cue me today trapped in my room, crying my eyes out, unable to leave even to get tissues because that’s the form and shape that depression takes for me, trapping me, leaving me imobilised. I hate being fucked up I hate not being able to sleep I hate that when I do sleep all I have is nightmares I hate the whole body ache, I hate being the girl who always seems fucked up I hate relying on my friends I hate not trusting my friends I hate being unable to ask for help I hate having to ask for help I hate that most of the time it seems like no one is able to help me. And I hate that all I could think about was the codeine in my drawer. So I texted Tom, and told him I was scared. He called my landline immediately, and we talked for ages, me crying and blowing my nose intermittantly into a towel. He calmed me down some but at the same time, while i was making jokes about expired condoms, I was combing through my medicine drawer, making a tally.

The codeine would be enough to make me sleep almost instantly. The brufen and the voltarin would probably rip my stomach to shreds. Worse case scenario, I would down them all, and then wake up, crippled from damage to my internal organs. I just want to sleep, I just want it to stop, I don’t want to kill myself, but I want to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Maybe I want that cry for attention, the suicide attempt, I want the bed in the hospital for a few days, people by my side mending bridges and all that crap. I just want to not be me anymore, to not have to battle this goddam fucking disease which seems so totally incurable.

The afternoon stretches on and on and on and I desperately try to get ahold of Nikki. Of course, I have her cellphone and her new flat doesn’t have a phone. I call her mother because that’s where she said she was going to be. Her mother calls me back to ask for Nikki’s number. I call her friend Gina, whose number I find in Nikki’s phone. She tells me Nicola’s number. Nicola’s voicemail says her name is Hayley. I am trapped on the floor in the corner of my room by my door. I can hear Bopha walking around outside and I can’t call out to her, which is fucking pathetic. And then I hear her on the phone, dealing with her sister’s crisis. I definately can’t call out now. When she knocks on my door to ask if I want dinner I say I’m fine.

I have a sore throat coming on, and it’s dry from crying so I don’t know how I’m going to swallow the pills if I take them. Maybe if I wash them down with a bottle of something, they’ll be effective enough that I won’t wake up. But the only liquor in the house that I can think of is half a bottle of kristov. I might as well swallow a box of panadol. I don’t want to try and fail. I don’t want to leave my friends and family behind, I don’t want to hurt them in any way, I know that they love me, and if I could just reach out, they’d turn heaven and earth over to help me. But I don’t see how they can help, because I’m just too far gone, I don’t see any light at the tunnel,and I am so tired and so fucking weary of having to fight this all the time, I just want to live and be okay and not have to worry every fucking day if I’m going to go psycho again. I’m tired of inflicting that worry on the ones I love as well, I’m just so fucking tired. I don’t want to be fucked up, it’s not cool,it’s not glamourous, it’s just flat out fucking exhausting. I don’t see how I’ve been an awful enough person to deserve this. And I know that there are squillions of people out there who suffer a fuck load more than me.

There’s no razors in my room, and that doesn’t work anyway. If I was to try the hot knife on my leg again, that’d mean getting up, going into the kitchen, facing the world, and besides, there’s only so much relief that that amount of physical pain can give you. My new idea is to take the codeine. Six tablets won’t kill me, but it will knock me out. Then maybe I can wake up feeling better. But what if someone walks in, freaks out. That’s not fair to do to flatmates, it’s what has stopped me before. Two pills then. But if I take two, I’m going to take more. I can’t stop my teeth from shaking, I can’t fucking handle this, and I need Nikki to come and save me NOW. I am always waiting for the knight on a white horse, and it never shows up, and we can trace that back to being 14 again, and I am so tired of therapy and talking and crying and wondering what’s the root of what and I am so tired of thinking and I am so tired of trying to keep myself alive so maybe it’s the turn of someone else and I just want the pain to stop, and surely that’s what painkillers are for and I’m tipping the codeine out into my palm and putting them back in the bottle and tipping them out again and I’m terrified so I super selfishly call Tom.

He’s in Christchurch asking if I want him to fly up, because he’ll do that on a moment’s notice for me, but I can’t get him to do that. He says he’ll call me back on the landline and I say no, I can’t go out into the lounge to get it. What I can get him to do, and what I force myself to do is admit that I really need to see someone, maybe KateH, and I tell him that I can’t call her, because it’s too fucking hard to ask for help, and so he tells me that he’ll call her, and we get off the line and I sit here and shake and my teeth bang against each other and I try to keep my breathing at an okay rate and he texts me to say that KateH is on her way and I cry some more and rub my nose raw on the towel.

And 20 minutes later she comes in, and I’m still sitting on my bed in the dark, doors and windows open wide, shaking in cold and fear and sickness styles, and she’s brought me flowers and chocolate and throaties and so I cry some more, weird animal noises onto her shoulder and have a semi panic attack before I manage to breathe and blow my nose and hand her my box of pills and ask her to take them away and we talk about pill dosages and i reiterate everything I’ve written above, and it’s the first time that I have ever told anyone in so much detail – with the possible exception of Kalpana – about how suicidal I have been/am whatever tense you want to use, and so that’s fucking terrifying as well, even if I end up listing stupid reasons why I can’t kill myself (ie – we wouldn’t win at Quiz Night anymore and she’d have to give the QM one of her specialty letters saying “no Jo didn’t kill herself cos you have a g/f you pompous git” etc) and just when I’m starting to come down, Ammy comes in and I so don’t want to talk to her at that time, and so when I try to explain that basically, I need to have my meds upped, she says “well everyone has down patches”. Yes, everyone has down patches, true. I have good patches, sometimes. That’s the difference. That and bad patches should never ever feel this way. Luckily Ammy leaves pretty soon, and KateH says “she has good intentions” adn I know that, but I just can’t deal. KateH is wonderful and nice and calms me down, and we even get in a little gossiping before she has to go off to work, taking my pills with her – promising to return them to me at a later date, because really, codeine in one-pill-at-a-time is lovely, and she drops me off at the shops so I can buy dinner and avoid my flat.

And here I am now, having eaten, and read half of Metro, and having had big long lovely cuddles with Sebastian. My eyes and nose are still stinging and my throat is still sore, but I’m a fuck load calmer, and have been rendered incapable of doing myself any harm tonight, even if I wanted to, which I don’t think I do. I’m seeing Kalpana on Tuesday, and I will try to see Dr White ASAP to get a new med script. Why did I write this up here? Attention seeking, some of you are saying. Sure, why not. Maybe. Maybe because I needed to write it. Maybe because I’d like you to know that if you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Joanna the altruist, yeah, that’s me. And yeah, I still ache, and I guess I always will.

So apparently, according to everyone and also me, I haven’t been writing here very often. That kinda sucks. It means that my writing is pretty much restricted to stupid little snippets of everyday banter about what I’ve been watching on TV, or endless melencholy about people that have touched me (literally) that don’t get aired much. Well, maybe I can change that. I could write a bit long piece here, or I could publish dirty snippets that I must stress are not related to one another, nor are they chronological. Maybe I’ll do both.

For a nice guy who told me that he hadn’t had sex outside a relationship before, he still managed to fuck me in half a dozen positions, transitioning seamlessly between them.

Yeah! This is going to be fun. Plus this way I get to pretend that I’m still hot and desirable instead of sitting around wearing old jeans in desperate need of a decent haircut and some proper shampoo.

So, Jo’s life as of November 25th. Well. Still searching for the perfect job. Still not sure how she’s going to pay the bills. Still questioning the meaning of life. Making sure she takes her pills regularly every morning and never lets doctor&pharmacys fuck her around again so she ends up going ten days without them.

Other than that, what ho? Hmmmm. Sebastian went AWOL for eight days, causing me no end of worry. I pashed a hot boy who looked like he was from The Strokes, but he was British, and British boys NEVER come home with me. I don’t know what’s up with them. What’s up with you Brits eh? Are you all prudes? (Actually he had a girlfriend. Whoops). I need two flatmates. I moved my bedroom furniture around. I may move the lounge furniture around although now that La’s gone I no longer have a willing helper monkey. And that’s it. That’s all that’s happened to me in the past shit, nearly two months. Fuck.

So it doesn’t matter that he seems like he is a sexual deviant. It doesn’t matter that he rejoices in my hairy legs that he takes the time to rub his cock up and down. It doesn’t matter when he licks my armpits, or tries to fuck me in the morning when he’s still wearing the same condom. He is no one. He is nothing. It doesn’t matter.

I don’t have new things going on in my life which is kind of a problem given that I need constant stimulation to keep me going. I feel very out of the loop now that I no longer receive free movie tickets and cds. I haven’t left the house in ummmm two weeks to go anywhere but the shops. No work and no play makes Jo a dull girl. No work and no play makes Jo a dull girl. No work and no play makes Jo a dull girl. You get the general idea. So right now I’m trying to correct that, in the sense of downloading free mp3s from NZm to see if I can find a great new NZ band I can love and hopefully I’m going to a show tomorrow night. Must. get. out. of. the. house. Of course, all donations of mix cds, tapes, old books and magazines will be most gratefully accepted.

I also should be creating more than I am. Maybe I oughta do my portfolio site. In fact, there’s absolutely no maybe about that at all. A few more job applications wouldn’t go astray either. I’m bloody sick of rejection letters though. If only the dole paid about $50 a week more – or my flatmates were able to cough up for their bills instantly – life would be so much sweeter. I could go out! I could do things! Oh yeah, did I mention that my car is totally dead? That kinda sucks some ass too.

What I need I think is a makeover. Maybe the Fab Five could come over and laugh at my clothes (“you have HOW MANY bonds tshirts? and they’re all tight on your nipples like that?” “What are these shoes? Silver plastic? Are you from the Jetsons?” “Christmas lights? Tack city! And what’s with all the saris?”) and change my life. Already half the time I think I have Joss Whedon doing commentary over my life (“And in this scene, Jo’s watching TV. Again. The empty dishes piled at her feet adn the newspaper opened to the ‘Situations Vacant’ are there to really drive home the loneliness she’s feeling, while soon the demons she’s battling will come back cos we’ve cut off her cipramil”). I think maybe instead I need less TV in my life. But Heather Havrilesky is the best thing about Salon, and if I never watched TV again, how would I know what she was talking about?

His hands are on my head, pushing back my head to secure his view and to make sure I don’t move my mouth away. I can taste his tang and it’s all I want for now, all that I could ever want, but there’s a knocking at the door, and he says that it’s her.

Oh yeah, crack out the porn, Jo. I do think that I’d probably have a good career in Erotica writing. I just need to get me a laptop so I can be more savvy about it. How exactly does one become an Erotica Writer? Or rather, a Writer of Erotica Who Makes a Living out of it? Perhaps even An Erotica Writer With A Shiny Laptop AND an Aeron Chair? An Erotica Writer with a Shiny Laptop and an Aeron Chair Who Can Afford to go see Her Hairdresser Again And Fill Said Hairdresser With Accumulated Scandals and Gossip, And Who Can Also Find Another Pair of $30 Jeans from Farmers That Fit All Lovely Except That Now They Have Big Thigh Holes And Are Thus Rendered Useless. Yeah, that’d be sweet.

PS: my hubris mail went down for a couple’o days, so if you emailed me and didn’t get a reply, try again. Cheers.

This reader emailed me on Sunday to ask if I was dead, and I wrote back that I was, and it didn’t feel too far from the truth at that stage. Yes, I had another mini breakdown. Yes I am okay now. I went to see Dr White today, and we’re bumping me up to 30mg of cipramil instead of 20mg for a bit. Also, Kalpana had called her (I okayed that) and told her that I was doing really really well and had responded heaps to the therapy, which is true, and also why it was so weird that I should have such an extreme relapse. Oh well. I’ve written enough about it elsewhere.

Right now I am home totally alone for the first time in ages, and it’s LOVELY. Johnny is at work, Lance and Ammy are at Darren’s having dinner with Annoying Jonny, Daniel is at some journo meeting and umm, yeah, that’s four, that’s all my flatmates. Bo’s moved out to Milton cos the rent was much much cheaper there, and it’s just up the road. I am waiting for a purple sleeping pill to kick in. Dr White almost laughed at me today when I said “and I know that you can’t give me a big prescription for sleeping pills…” but she gave me four days instead of two, which is lovely cos I am so fucking flat out exhausted. Depression is tiring business when it stops you from sleeping.

I’ve had a day and a half off work this week due to sickness, which means that I’m a little behind on my work. I have my story to do on the Prostitution Law Reform bill in which I talk to three sex workers to finish tomorrow, and I want to do a really really really brilliant job on it because I’m lucky to be in position to write it, knowing people in the industry. Oh yes, I have my finger in many pies. This issue also will have my story on the Australian band Taxiride. Jason Singh wants the world to know he does not sleep with teenage groupies. Heh.

What else? Lots of parties and events and gossip. One of the boys I fancy has a girlfriend, I found out. However, *1 has apparently moved to Auckland. I’d be more excited if I wasn’t dedicated to a life of celibacy. Sebastian has fleas but I’m feeding him garlic brewers’ yeast to get rid of it. Apparently that works. I also have to take him to the vet. Oh god, I’m a crazy old lady with cats already.

I think I’m menopausal, cos I am full of hot flushes. Although the fact that I’m currently bleeding might suggest otherwise. Oh well.

Today I went to Rumba! It was hilarious, and also super choice because of the following reasons:

There is a ridiculous amount of good food (ie – vegetables) and liquor in the house. You should come over. I will cook you the best dinner in the world.

Well hello there! It’s been a long time hasn’t it? Today has been spent in my pajamas, some of the time watching “The Shining” and some of the time standing in Bo’s doorway hissing “REDRUM! REDRUM!” and some of the time making and eating kickass guacamole. Freshworld, what used to be ummm something else, near Mt Eden Foodtown is now officially FUCKING EXCELLENT. Karen and I were drooling at vege shops up in Kerikeri, but this is now officially as good.

Oh yeah, I’ve been up north. For four days it was just me and Karen and my parents’ van and the open road. It was pretty choice. We stayed in Whangarei, Paihia and Pukenui. I went swimming in the ocean, through great big forests’o Kauri, to NZ’s northern most point, and horseriding along Ninety Mile Beach. All of it was pretty fucking spectacular.

My holiday came at the end of my exams, which were also the end of my graduate diploma, my year of study etc etc. It’s strange cos I’ve been happy ever since I started on cipramil, but there was just the hugest sense of an anticlimax at the end, and I cried some, cos it felt like no one fuckign gave a damn at all. For some reason, I still expect people to care when I achieve things. I guess I have this vision of someone popping up with an enormous novelty cheque. But anyways, later that night, Ammy managed to get all excited for me (I’m so glad i’ve discovered her again) and with her help, I perked up and we drank many bellinis and went out to see the Rogues play at the Galatos basement, and Lawerence did fat harmonica improves and it turned out ot be a fucking excellent night after all.

I have one week of only working part time, then I start full time til the 10th of January in the office I currently work in, only doing some’o the computer guy’s job as well as my own. I feel very not up to the task, but it’s okay, cos if there’s ever anything too complicated, I can email him and say “oh, shall I go into your database and fix it?” and he’ll freak out and do it by remote access from Ireland instead. Muahhaha. I’m liking my office – although it is currently full’o turmoil and drama. Maybe that’s why I like it -because it doesn’t affect me.

I’ve been having an influx of very very vivid dreams lately. I dreamt about my latest crush twice – probably my mind’s way of reminding me it’s highly doubtful I’ll ever see him again. Those were nice dreams but I’ve also had very traumatic realistic ones as well, which I could so do without.

Homework that I’m supposed to be doing for Kulpana (look, I learnt her name!) is writing a list of all the things I like about myself vs. all the things that I don’t. I’m becoming even more selfaware but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m any more in touch with my feelings. She’s suggested that maybe I am far too influenced by other people’s opinions of me. If I say that maybe she’s right then I’m just proving her theory aren’t I?

Next Saturday, I am going to Rumba – the pop music festival. Brad’s dad got tickets for free, and to quote Brad – “well you were the first person i thought of, of course. i mean, who would appreciate a whole days worth of crap pop music better than yo ho jo?”. Yo Ho Jo is of course my pirate name. Yaaaarh.

Last night I went to a BBQ at Dee’s house. When her husband introduced me to people, he was like “oh, you’ve met them before, but you were drunk”. Well at least I wasn’t fucking wearing boat shoes or talking about yachting! I couldn’t drink last night as I was driving. Still, it was nice to catch up with Dee again. I’m giving up on people who don’t return phone calls or texts, I can’t be assed making the effort all the time.

Hmm, that’s probably about all the update you need for now. If you want to know more, then you can email me. You know how.

xojo

Okay, so just because someone produces the magic substance that wakes you up does NOT mean that you should trust their decisions. Oh no. So if the boy who makes you coffee once or twice a week recomends that next time you have a VANILLA soy latte, don’t do it. Even if you love Vanilla Coke. Even if you’re easily swayed. Don’t do it. It tastes RANCID. Moral’o the story is, don’t take tips from men who listen to lifeFM or happy hardcore, and have mutton chops.

Oh look, Jo’s talking real trivial issues, she must be feeling better!

And actually, I am. even if Cipramil leaves me with a dry mouth and totally inadequate orgasms and weird dizzy spells sometimes. Oh, plus I have a totally burnt thumb. But I suspect that has more to do with Guy Fawkes than any other mental affliction.

So where were we? We talked about the coffee, which sucked. I trained today to do the WebDev Guy’s job while he’s away on leave. He put a sign on our office door that has the Communications Administrator Job being done by a “Joanne” McLeod. Apparently this is his reaction to Bridget telling him off for spelling it “McCloud”. I was like “Skew, you just gave me all your passwords for the webserver, are you sure you wanna say bad things about me?”. I hope he knows I do actually like him, even if there is a little “friendly” tension between me and Terri’s replacement. I’m still infamous at work for doing so well at the quiz on Friday night, and of course for the Hula dance that went along with it.

I worked from 10-3pm today, serving at Skew’s leisure so that he could teach me before he gets all mad panicy, and then I went for my eye appointment, which is very heavily subsidized by my organisation, as long as I made it clear that I need glasses to operate my VDU. I made it very clear. The guy was all young and nice, being a final year Opotometry Student, and it turns out that my glasses are WAY TOO STRONG on my left side. He was nice but too close in some parts, and I felt like I was supposed to pash him, because really, that’s the only time you’re supposed to hear people breathing like that. And then we got to the room where to try on frames, and he put the first pair’o frames on me, and he was like “yeah, that’s so it” and we tried on lots more pairs, but he was right, the first pair really suited me, even though they were $300 frames, and we couldn’t find anything nice that was cheaper (“I have expensive tastes!”) plus when someone is so convinced that something looks that good on you, it’s hard to argue, isn’t it? I told him off during my (incredibly long) eye examination cos he kept laughing at me when I was so obviously wrong reading letters, and he was like “hey, it’s boring to be so clinical”. He also got an abridged version of my full medical history because he damn well asked for it, and yes, thank you, I appreciate why I’m having dizzy periods, and I’m paying $120 an hour to sort that out, and I appreciate that you’re taught to do this, but seriously, get back to writing me out a new glasses prescription. Thank you.

And then this evening there was Quiz, but when Clay and I got there, who was sitting outside but *IV (damn, I wish I was into full name disclosure styles, cos it’d sure as hell make things easier) and I was like umm “okay, I’ll go get the beer” because i am LAME and because he totally wouldn’t even look in my direction at Justin’s last party, and then KateH showed up, and eventually Peter (Hi peter, you’re choice even if you’re not scrawny in a tight tshirt anymore) and a friend of his, and that was our quiz team, although Bo and Leo put in an appearrence for a little. At one stage, I went out to the bathroom, and *IV was out having a cigarette, so I kicked his chair, and said hey, and said that he didn’t need to be afraid’o me cos I didn’t mean to cause trouble at all in any way. He said he was back with his g/f and I said that I knew that, and that was cool and I understood, and he was like, “but you were the first girl since her” and I said that he’d told me that at the time, and then I told a kinda lie and said that I was in love with the boy who’s party we’d hooked up at (a lie in that it wasn’t LOVE as such, but definitely some kinda big feelings) and he was like “what, Justin?” and I laughed my head off and I was like “don’t you remember – we were at a party in Herne Bay” and he was like “ooooh” and I said that he was quite probably the nicest boy I’d ever had sex with, and I’m sorry that I’d snobbed him the first time I saw him after we’d had sex but I hadn’t expected to see him again quite so soon, and he was like “I got a snub in the Hub” which was actually really funny and we were both like, mutal admiration for how cool each other was, and he said that he’d got the note I left him in his letterbox that said he was a total sweetheart, which is true, and he said I had great taste in music, and we had a laugh, and just parted on super terms. So that was lovely.

Meanwhile, back at Quiz. OH MY GOD! Okay, so every Tuesday, we call ourselves “The Slab” on account of it being our apartment name, right? Well, tonight not only were there “The SLAB” but there was “Peanut Slab” as another team, and also “FUCK THE SLAB” as a team name. ATTITUDE! Anyways, we won, and so that’s a $50 tab for us to drink next Monday when I’ve finished my first exam. No more Quiz nights at Vesbar anymore, at least not over summer. He took my number and said he’d call if he started working somewhere else, but Meh, I doubt that’s what I would like it to be, then him and me and KateH played with Sparklers in the Quad. It was pretty choice. ANd then I went up to Kelly and Rowena’s and we set off fireworks on their roof and I burnt my hand. I went home cos I was so drunk I could hardly stand up anymore, especially in the rain, and Kara and Clay and Bo and Leo were all watching Harry Potter, and there were Nachoes on the stove, so I was stoked, and that was cool, except, my god, maybe kids have mucher longer attention spans than I do, cos I so could not be bothered concentrating, so after an hour and a half, I headed off here.

But doesn’t it make you happy? Look, Jo all conscious and stuff – and like, sure she’s drunk, but that just means that her OOS doesn’t hurt as much, and yes, I am, I am looking after myself, MUM. ANd soon, I will post you a rant about happiness, and also about Therapy. White MiddleClass Girl Angst etc. Love you all – well okay, that’s a lie. Love all of you who you know who you are, and care about some of the rest of you, and are glad some of you read me, adn would very much like some of the rest’o you to fuck off now please. Thank you. Xojo.