I’m not entirely sure how to start this entry off. Nothing hugely important has happened – we went out for a drink, but the queue for the club we had intended to go to was too long, so I thought I’d call it a night – and there haven’t really been any developments in my health. So why the fuck am I feeling so desperate at the moment, when for the past three months at home (the time that I thought my mind would really go into overdrive and finally send me spiralling off into a ditch of my own self pity), I’ve been perfectly happy? I suppose that’s something for me to ponder on, but more than anything, I suspect that having a job I enjoyed surrounded by people who had no idea about my problems, who would never have any idea about my problems, was good for me. But now I’m back here. The people know what’s going on, and yet everything seems to be carrying on as normal, only I’ve changed.
Unusually for me, I don’t have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth as I write this, and my humour isn’t in gear tonight to put this entry into a nicely irreverent tone. That’s not to say that this is going to turn into a full on barrage of self-doubt, but damn it, I’m going to try my best. Right now, though, I’m having problems. I know that any Psychology student could turn round to me and tell me that I was transferring my problems into areas of my life that don’t need such due care and attention, and that really, I’m being hugely irrational about everything and that I just need to relax, but I can’t. I’m in trouble. I need help.
Next week, I have the appointment that will determine whether I need to start my first round of anti-retroviral treatment. A simple trip to the house in which I used to live ended up with me receiving a letter that has really thrown me – they’re altered my appointment, to a time two hours later than that originally booked. I don’t know why such a petty thing should bring everything to the fore, but I think having to be on the phone to the place, when the last thing I wanted to think about was my illness, might have had quite a lot to do with it. I rang them, the woman on the other end announced that she had no idea why I had had another appointment pencilled in, but I would be better to take that one as it was a longer slot.
Fair game, Cerys.
And so, it being a Wednesday, the plan was to go out tonight and celebrate what could be my last week as a drinker. But I couldn’t settle in, not even for a second. We sat there, me nursing my pint of Kronenbourg, Tristan knocking back glass after glass of Tetley’s, smoking and trying the best we could to dance around the situation, but it just didn’t work. We even tried wandering over to a troupe of first years and sparking up a conversation, but by the time we were asked politely to leave by the security staff, I had totally lost whatever vibe I had. And so, while Tristan queued for the cash machine, I took it upon myself to dutifully head home and take care of the place.
The crux of all of this is that I’m extremely, extremely unhappy. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life, and I don’t enjoy it. I spend my days traipsing to town and back for no good reason other than it being something to do that constitutes exercise, and it’s something that I can do without eating or smoking (you should never eat out on the street, it’s crass, and smoking and walking were never going to be a great combination.) I’m back at University, it’s Fresher’s week, and while I should be out partying the night away, getting horrifically smashed, and turning up at 6am the next day, I just cannot bring myself to do it. All I can do is worry about how many calories I have had every day (because God forbid I get fat again), how much money I am spending and how much I can possibly save (not that there is a great deal of point, because I don’t spend what I save or put it towards any great venture), and what will happen to me when they put me on medication. And that isn’t even the worst part.
They’re not going to tell me that I NEED to go onto medication – they’re going to tell me that I have the choice to go onto medication or not. And this is not what I need, because with the way my mind is at the moment, I have a horrible feeling I might tell them where to shove their protease inhibitors and walk away to die on my own somewhere in a corner. I mean, God knows that next year, due to my unfortunate selection of housemates who all do courses that require the third year to be spent abroad, I will be living alone. So I might as well be dying alone. Most worryingly, this is the way I have begun to think of myself and my University life, and I’m about ready to pack it all in. What had started out as mild concerns about how the new semester was going to pan out have become mini-despairs caused by my own downward spiral into what could possible be, at the end of the day, the start of something resembling clinical depression. Needless to say, when the term begins, the clashes and the difficulties, any lack of understanding, and the ever present inability to relax by having a pint and a smoke, is going to make life a hell of a lot more difficult for my housemates, my friends, my partner, and I suppose least importantly, me.
I’m just not positive anymore.
PosLife.