This post is dedicated to all the really stupid people that have been part of my life at one time or another. My life wouldn’t be the same without you

And to open, a brief story of more train stupidity. This time though, the culprits were younger. Which makes it mildly more acceptable…

For those of you who don’t know about trains in England, the stations are labelled [City]. So I get on a train that says Leicester, and I end up in Leicester. Simple. Unless it’s a big city with more than one station. Then you get it in the form [City Station Name]. So if I wanted to go to London, I could go to London Euston, London St Pancras, etc. etc. Still simple, right? Because after all the train companies WANT you to get on a train and end up at a place you WANT to be. So this is pretty common knowledge. And I get on a train to go home, and one of the stations is ‘Manchester Oxford Road’…

Girl 1: Hey, this train goes to Oxford! (bear in mind at this point we are travelling NORTH, and Oxford is SOUTH).

Girl 2: Really? Where does it say that?

Girl 1: It says right there! *points to electronic screen thing with the names of all the stations*

Girl 2: Um…I’m not sure that we are…this train is going north…

Girl 1: It says Oxford ROAD though. So maybe it’s a road that goes near Oxford from Manchester. You know, like Derby Road goes near Derby?

My head nearly exploded at this point from the thought of a single road (not even a motorway) going from Manchester to Oxford, somehow via Nottingham (where we’d started). And also because Derby Road goes TO Derby, not ‘near’ it.

Here’s a nice little map to show Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford in relation to each other for you non-Brits.

And I was semi-bored tonight so I started watching WAGs Boutique. My favourite part was definitely the part where one of them said, ‘Yeah, readers of Now magazine are probably independent career women’. Not their immediate target audience I would think…

So anyway, I’ve had a productive week so far (although it IS only Tuesday of course). Yesterday I went to a lecture at 10, then I went to the gym, and after that I went to the library…got back home about 5 pm. Then today, I had a lecture at 10, went to the library until 2, went to a seminar, and then went back to the library because we were supposed to get the essay questions for literature today. Checked my email…when it eventually loaded, there were no questions. So I went off to English to pick up a hard copy, then it was back to the library to decide on a question and get some reading in before other people took all the books out. I’m just panicking because we have 5 essays this semester, and the other 4 are due in May and we’ve had the questions a while. This one is due in on the 21st March and we got the questions TODAY (in fact a lot of people will be waiting until tomorrow or even later I think). Plus, I’m scheduled to do a lot of stuff at work soon, including ‘training’ for implementing some program that is apparently ‘different’ to the stuff I’ve done before, and it sounds like a big deal. As in they normally call me the day before/up to half an hour before they want me to work, and this time they called about three weeks in advance (which is totally messing with my head, but that’s another story). I got home, and since then I’ve typed up some notes, charged my ipod, and done some laundry. Yay.

Anyway, I went home for the first time in over a month at the weekend, and everyone was ill. I had two parents wandering around the house repeatedly saying, ‘I’m ill and nobody cares about me!!!!!11111′. Plus I had to deal with a very sulky cat – Fuzz always spends a day or so sulking because I’ve left her, and by the time she wants attention and is sleeping on my bed, I’m leaving again. So I played some Zelda with my sister, went shopping, and took Pom for a walk. At least he seemed happy, bless him.

So…tis about time I returned comments I think. I overslept this morning and managed to get to the lecture on time by the skin of my teeth, and if I’m going to keep productivity up by going to the library and the gym tomorrow, I need sleep!

First of all I have to say a massive thank you to all the people that commented on my last entry (and also spoke to me on MSN). I’ve been reading through your comments and they made me cry for two reasons – firstly because I felt so honoured that you guys gave up your time to help me and advise me and secondly because I hate the fact that some of you know where I’m coming from and that you’ve experienced it too. I will return comments at some point tomorrow, but I’m so grateful for each and every one, I didn’t expect such a good response.

Thankfully I’m feeling better, and it’s definitely the pro-active approach that’s working. My school PE teachers would die of shock if they knew my exercise pattern of the last few days (Saturday: Gym, Sunday: Dance mat workout, Monday: Gym, Yesterday: Swimming, plus over an hour’s walking to/from/around campus every day). Yeah I know it’s excessive. But it’s making me feel happy and it’s helping me sleep and it’s definitely increasing my appetite, which are all good things!

Argh…food. Yesterday we planned to make pancakes, but Hwan-Min’s car window got smashed by the COUNCIL (stupid road workers), and so that messed stuff up. But I still got pancake stuff, and a few of my friends came over. I don’t know if I mentioned how much Hwan-Min eats, but seriously. He suggested McDonald’s, then we spent a few hours making a cottage pie, THEN we made pancakes. And if that’s not enough, we went to an all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet this evening *falls over and dies with the amount of food consumed in the past 48 hours* It’s a good thing I’m not doing all this exercise to lose weight :P

So, I’m throwing myself into exercise and work, which is probably a good thing with 5 essay deadlines looming up, plus one exam (totalling close to 20,000 words I would guess). I’m going to go to the library tomorrow morning to make a start on preparation for my Chaucer essay – although I still need to pick a question, I’ve narrowed it down to 3 – rather than going to the gym. Then I have lectures in the afternoon, and after that…well, my family keeps messing me around with their weekend plans, and there are no trains on Sunday (or direct ones on Saturday)…and there’s no way I’m spending four hours on a bus so if they want me they can come to me!

Just as I thought everything had worked itself out and was going to be fine, I got hit by depression this weekend. I don’t recommend carrying on reading this post if you think you will find it especially triggering, or you’re sensitive because God knows I’m not aiming to make anyone feel anywhere near as bad as I do right now.

…

I’m scared now because I get the feeling it’s going to be something that’s going to reoccur periodically throughout my entire life…I’ve seen and heard about it happening, and I thought my depression was just a really, really bad patch that was in the past now. The pain is so intense it feels physical a lot in my chest, and I constantly try to distract myself and constantly move from one thing to another, not being able to focus on anything. Just wandering now. Occasionally bursting into tears.

On my birthday, and at Christmas…I wished on the cakes to be happy. That’s all I wanted. A little bit of happiness. Now I find it impossible to deal with most things unless I block them out. Which means I’m blocking people out and pushing them away. But the pain I’m living with without even considering certain other people is so tremendous…I can’t even begin to think about what it would be like if I spoke to these people. One thing that devastates me the most is that I used to be so strong. I put up with a lot of shit and I just got on with it. Now absolutely nothing will throw me into a suicidal state.

Alana’s been amazing. We’ve only known each other for about a month, but she’s been such a great housemate and friend to me when I needed someone there the most. I’m not saying she’s the only person that’s been there for me because that’s really NOT true by any stretch of the imagination and I’m very lucky in that I have a lot of amazing friends that I would truly do anything for because I love them so much. And I have a lot of love to give, underneath all this hurt and pain. Anyway. Alana’s not here tonight, which is probably why I’m so much more stressed than I have been over the past couple of days. She definitely understands though and she really is helping me. I don’t know how or why or whether it’s really obvious, but she’s picked up on the fact that I’m severely lacking in self-confidence and she says things to me like ‘Andy [the guy she's seeing] thinks you’re really pretty’ and ‘Hwan Min really respects you’ and stuff like that which I find difficult to believe but at least it helps my paranoia…

The first sign that I’m depressed is that I get highly paranoid. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m paranoid anyway, without having to even consider it, but when I’m depressed I notice every tiny movement, and constantly think I see things running across the floor, moving in/out of my line of vision etc. The second thing is my memory – I can’t remember the stupidest things, even if they happened five minutes ago. After that I stop eating (hasn’t happened this time yet, probably because Alana cooks a lot for me, bless her – and she’s an amazing cook – plus she takes me food shopping with her so I end up buying things), and after that I stop sleeping. After that stage, I turn into crazy woman and lose control of what’s going on and what I’m doing. I drag myself into university and that’s the most effort I make with my life. I can’t think of anything beyond death. I don’t want to. Thinking about a new day terrifies the shit out of me, never mind the rest of my life. I take it hour by hour, and even that’s sometimes too much. At the moment, I’m not that bad. Thinking back to the time when I was…well, it was the lowest I’d ever been. I didn’t even realise it was possible to get that low and still fool people into thinking you’re a functioning human being. In fact most of the time I doubt people thought I was.

My main cure at the moment is exercise. It distracts me, it often involves interaction with my friends (gym/swimming), and best of all, I’m too physically exhausted to cry, or to think, or to feel pain. There aren’t any other ‘cures’. TV is quite good, but the adverts freak me out because I can’t concentrate on them, and when it gets so late that there’s nothing on it scares me going up to bed, especially in a highly paranoid state. Today I decided to be constructive with my ‘illness’ – ironically I’m a much more positive person now in other ways, which annoys the crap out of some people at times – and used my dance mat, read some stylistics essays, read some Chaucer, began my Drama seminar preparation and did some laundry. After about 4pm though, it started to go downhill and I took a looong break to relax. And now I feel pretty crap. I’m trying to count the good things – I’m nowhere near as bad as I was over Christmas, there are things I’m looking forward to both short and long term, Alana will be back tomorrow, I can go to the gym, and I have stuff possession-wise that I am grateful for, and I do appreciate, even if I don’t always say it explicitly.

All I can is – if feeling like this means someone, somewhere else in the world doesn’t, then it’s worth it. Because there is no one I would wish it on, ever. I would willingly give my life to someone in extreme physical pain, or dying, or someone with cancer, or, well, anyone. I just wish it were possible. Because I stopped wanting to live around three months ago.