Pixie's Chronicle: Even More Mental Breakdowns

Hello! I know that it's been a while since I've properly updated anything, but as you can probably guess, I had to work a bunch more overtime. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't promised my supervisor I would cover her shifts so that she could spend time with her son who's leaving to join the navy. So I'm working my own hours, plus looking after the store, plus working some of her hours as well. I'm beyond exhausted, and just barely have the energy to write this blog post. But I feel guilty that I haven't updated any of my stories, and I just wanted to explain to you why. 

So yeah, my supervisor's son has joined the navy which is pretty cool. My dad tried to force me to join the navy once so that he could live vicariously through me like always. Accept my dad's application was rejected due to racism. My grandfather was Hungarian, so he was rejected on the grounds that they thought he was a Soviet spy lol - totally ignoring the fact that my grandfather ran away when my dad was only a baby. Listening to her son's stories, I'm glad that I didn't bow down to my dad's peer pressure when I was a teenager. The routine is definitely not for me. I get out of breath and tired just walking up the stairs, never mind standing to attention on a submarine all day. That, and being trapped in water is one of my biggest fears. Sitting through movies like Titanic and Poseidon are difficult for me as they're my worst nightmare. Though weirdly, I'm totally fine when I'm on a boat. I've been on plenty of ferries, with my little voyage to Belgium being my favourite. Oh yeah, and I've been on a pirate ship. That was definitely awesome! But submarines are not for me. He's a braver man than me. 

Work hasn't exactly been all fun either. Either my temper has just gotten shorter lately, or people have gotten more annoying. I'm getting tired of stopping stupid people from accidentally killing themselves by overdosing. If they understand straight away and listen to me, fair enough, it's more the ones that try to argue with me that really annoy me. It took me ages to convince this one guy that he was doing some serious damage to his liver and kidneys. There was also one teenage boy who was desperate for me to give him some creatine, which should not be used by anyone under the age of 18. He insisted he would be fine, but I didn't care, because it was against the law for me to give it to him. I'm not losing my job because of some bratty teenager. Then there was a lady who shouted at me because I couldn't cure her vertigo. I just don't have the patience to deal with those people, especially right now. 

My mental health has taken another tumble, which is always fun. The stress of work obviously hasn't been helping. I'm just not built to work 8am - 6pm shifts, 5 or 6 days a week. We're still so short staffed, though. Anyone new joining the company always ends up quitting because they can't take the pressure. Yet upper management are always like, "why does nobody want to work for us?" I ended up proper losing my temper when the company didn't end up paying me that bonus they promised me. Every time I would send them an email, they would ignore me. It wasn't until I threatened legal action that they finally - and conveniently - responded to my emails. I should receive it on my next pay check as back-payment (after forgetting two times already to give it to me). Luckily, my area manager was pretty cool about the whole thing, especially after he found out that I'd had a mental breakdown at work. 

Oh yeah, that. Hehe. Yeah, I had a mental breakdown during one of my shifts. It had been brewing for a while, and I usually have one at least once a season. This was my spring one. My anxiety had been bad due to stress, and I was also feeling really down due to knowing that my grandma is likely not going to make it through the year. Her condition keeps deteriorating, and now one of her toes has fallen off, so we're terrified of her getting a gangrene infection. To make matters worse, one of her carers has been making life difficult for us. She kept arranging things behind our backs, and we even found out that while she was on duty once, she switched her phone off, so if my grandma needed to contact her in an emergency, she wouldn't have been able to. That's the one that worried us the most. We're paying her to look after my grandma (she's a qualified nurse and everything) and she goes and does stuff like that. To make it even worse, she's a family friend as well, which sort of doubles the betrayal if that makes sense? Needless to say, she's gone now, and a new family friend has taken up the position. We really don't want to have to go through an agency again to get a carer, since the last time we did that, my grandma's pearl necklace got stolen. Luckily, her new carer also has a niece who's training to become a doctor, so hopefully that will be some extra help and support. This carer is much nicer, so fingers crossed everything continues to go okay. 

The rest of the family haven't been in touch to ask how she is, not that we're surprised. It doesn't make it any less heart-breaking. She hasn't even been told that she now has great-grandchildren and they've never been introduced to her. However, she probably wouldn't remember if she was told anyway. Every time I speak to her, she keeps thinking I'm still in high school, and always gets really confused when I remind her that I'm an adult now (physically at least, anyway). It's funny, yet sad, when she asks me how things are going at school. We make jokes about her dementia all the time, so I guess we can at least laugh about it most of the time. It's better than the alternative. I think one of the funniest moments was when she started speaking Welsh to me out of the blue. I was super confused. Turns out she thought she was staying with our Welsh branch of the family which is where she stayed during World War II. I wish I did know how to speak Welsh. I only know the Welsh word for 'microwave.' I feel like because my grandma is Welsh, I should be able to speak more than that, but I never had the opportunity to learn since I didn't officially meet her until I was around 8-years-old (she and my mum fell out; it's a long story).

Saying all that just reminded me of one time I was talking to TLOS21, and my Yorkshire accent was that thick that she thought I was speaking German. It's now become a running gag between us, and is her go-to joke whenever she's trying to cheer me up. No clue how Yorkshire dialect and German sound alike, but whatever lol. If anything, I think the Yorkshire dialect sounds closer to an Irish accent? Maybe? Oh god, please don't come after me Irish people who might be reading this. I dunno. Nobody can ever understand what I'm saying. I'm starting to think it's just a 'me' thing rather a Yorkshire thing. I'm always getting tongue tied and tripping over my own words. I think that's why I prefer writing so much. I can always communicate so much better that way.

Okay, I went way off on a tangent there.

Back to the mental breakdown, I was basically publicly humiliated at work. I'm going to preface this by saying that, despite constantly having to manage the place, I have had NO training in order to be able to do so. So yeah, it's kinda not surprising that I have no idea what I'm doing half of the time. The company are aware that our new manager is away on training, and that me and my supervisor share only one brain cell between us, but for some reason they decided that now was the best time for an inspection! As soon as the auditor walked through the door, my heart sank. Why me? The previous manager has left such a mess of things, so it felt like we had been sabotaged. 

Obviously, I failed the inspection. Half of the questions I didn't know the answer to, because, wouldn't you know it, I HAVEN'T BEEN TRAINED! I explained this to her, and she sympathised, but there was nothing she could do. She was there to inspect how things currently are, and I wouldn't be getting any bonus points just because of my lack of training on the company's part. It was embarrassing just how little I knew. At one point she asked me to produce a key for the CCTV hard-drive, to which I responded, "there's a key?" Oops. But it turns out that nobody else had ever heard of this key either. It really was like I had been set up to fail. Some things were down to me just being stupid, but I'd say a good chunk of them were due to forces beyond my control. 

Of course, our big cheese regional manager was notified of the failure, to which he proceeded to openly express in front of everyone how disappointed he was in me. I. Just. Lost. It. I spent the rest of my shift locked in my office and just cried. I was already under so much stress due to everything else, and now I had just been blamed for my own lack of training. It put me in a foul mood for the rest of the week, and it felt like all of mine and my supervisor's hard work to keep the place running had just been thrown back in our faces. It seriously depressed us. It made us feel shit at our jobs when we're trying our best with what small amount of tools we've been given. It's like giving someone a blunt stick and some marble and then being mad that they were unable to carve the Venus de Milo out of it.

*WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT AHEAD* 

It didn't help that I was already feeling extra sensitive over everything due to a traumatic incident a few days before. This is going to sound pathetic and melodramatic, but here goes: I watched a bird commit suicide. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but the incident actually genuinely upset me and spooked me for the next few days. Basically, I was waiting for my bus on my way to work when I noticed a blackbird by my feet. I thought it was odd that it didn't fly off when I got close to it, but just assumed it was resting. It wasn't until I got a better look at it that I realised its beak was broken. It's lower beak was literally hanging on by a thread. I knew what this meant for the poor thing. No beak means no food. It was destined to slowly starve to death. I was considering calling the RSPCA when it started hopping out into the road. I had the stupid hope that maybe it was going to fly off and head back to its family who might be able to look after it. 

No.

The bird was actually purposefully trying to jump in front of cars. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I know it sounds daft, but it really looked like the bird was doing it on purpose. Some cars swerved to avoid it while others either didn't see it or ignored it. I knew what was coming, and I managed to look away just in time for it to get squashed by a car. The sound of it's body being squished... I don't think I'll ever get that sound out of my head. I looked back up and there were feathers everywhere, and the poor thing had been squashed under a car's tyre. 

I was shell shocked. It took so much self-control to not burst into tears on the bus. I kept blaming myself, thinking that I could have rescued it. A part of me knew that there was probably no helping it, and that at least getting hit by a car was a quicker way to go than starving to death, but still. As soon as I reached my office, that's when I finally burst into tears. I felt so stupid, but I just couldn't help it. I couldn't get the bird out of my head, especially the sad look in its eyes as it hopped into the road. I just wished that there was something I could have done. 

My supervisor ended up comforting me. Her sister actually works for the RSPCA and said that there would have been nothing they could do to help. All they would have been able to do was put it to sleep to end its misery. Which I already knew deep down, but still. I was a wreck for quite a while and just hid behind my desk eating a chocolate bar while I tried to calm myself down. I just tried to focus on the fact that nature is cruel and unfair and that I had to get over it. At least the bird's death ultimately ended up being quick rather than it slowly starving to death, because obviously without a beak, it wouldn't be able to eat. It took a few hours, but I did finally manage to calm down. I was still spooked for a few days afterwards, and I still find myself staring at the exact spot it got hit, but at least its no longer suffering.

*END OF DISTURBING CONTENT*

Luckily, I had a week off after all this. I had hoped to get a pile of writing done, but... meh. I was more exhausted than I realised, and spent most of that time either sleeping or playing video games. Not to mention it's tornado season, so I've been following all of that. And then it was my birthday, and I decided that it was going to be a one hundred percent chill day. I don't really like doing much for my birthday anyway. Gimme some junk food and I'm pacified. It was even more of a quiet affair this year since I've now disowned most of my family, and of course with my grandma's dementia, she's not gonna remember it. My mum can't relate to me on any level and vice versa, so exchanges between the two of us were brief like always. My younger brother just chucked a Lego Harry Potter game at me and wished me happy birthday, and my dad, sister and older brother pretended that I don't exist again lol. 

But it was a fun day. The best presents were from Jowy, of course, with a Sebastian (Black Butler) scroll, and the vampire expansion pack for the Sims 4. Oh yeah, and the early present in the form of the Mariokart 8 DLC. I had a Super Mario birthday cake, and then passed out at the end of the day after eating too much pizza. It was nice. It was also probably the most chill birthday I've had in a long time. All thanks to telling most of my family to f*** off out of my life and never come near me again. 

After my birthday, I did actually manage to update Amicus after months of that story hanging in limbo. There's now only two chapters left, and you can read the latest one by clicking here. I'll be so glad when that story is finished. I wouldn't say I hate it, but I really don't think it's my best work. I've got some much more exciting projects lined up for the future that I can't wait to properly get started on. However, before those, I'm going to more heavily focus on the fics that I already have out; Go and Conquer, and Double Trouble especially. Reflection was always going to be a pretty long fic, and I'm still going to try and aim to update at least every two to three weeks (as soon as things settle back down at work). I really want to pick a day of the week to update my fics and stick to it, but my shifts are just so all over the place.

But I did find the time to add a bunch of my story playlists to my Spotify! So yeah, you can find them via my account: tauruspixie. There are even playlists for stories on there that have yet to be published, so please do feel free to check all of those out. Music is always a huge inspiration for me when I'm writing, so I think that it's important that I share this with you.

I've also started a new segment on my blog called 'The Mad House.' I'm hoping to use it to talk openly about mental health and my own personal struggles with it. Even if no one reads it, it at least helps me get stuff off my chest and helps me wrap my head around things. Writing seems to be the only way I can do that. It will mostly just be stuff that you can point and laugh at, because some of the stuff mental health conditions can make you do are ridiculous and hilarious. I find that if you can laugh at something, the less scary it seems. Laughter is the best medicine as they always say. I'm also hoping to start uploading a dream diary to my blog, too, since everyone is always telling me how crazy and hilarious my dreams can be. 

Our new manager is due to start some time next week (hopefully), so that should mean a more stable shift pattern. However, it turned out that he didn't even know he was supposed to be starting next week. What a good start lol. To be honest, this guy hasn't made the best first impression on us so far, and we hope that impression is wrong. Like I said, he wasn't even aware of his own start date, and is already trying to squirm his way out of working weekends and make the rest of us do it. I get it, working weekends sucks, but we all have to take it in turns to keep things fair. We're all already taking bets that he isn't going to last long in this job. Not only is our manager position cursed and managers don't last longer than a year, he's also been hired from outside the company, and those never last more than a few months. I've been with the company for three years now, and in that time, I've had four managers. 

I just hope that he's also prepared for working in my town lol. There's a few people that we're going to have to warn him about. There's a really violent shoplifter who lives in the apartments just down the road. There's the paedophile who continuously walks up and down the street smiling at little girls. There's the local drunks who always help themselves to what's on the shelves. There's the heroin users that constantly leave used needles by the back door. There's the cannabis farm next door. There's the drunk guy who walks around with his guitar shouting conspiracy theories at people. The list goes on. I both love yet hate my town at the same time lol. It can make for some entertaining stories, but when you're living in the moment they occur, it can be a bit scary. Especially when outside your place of work has been a crime scene for two separate murder investigations in the past year. Oy vey. 

But yeah, fingers crossed that I do manage to get some more writing done soon. I can't decide which fic will be updated next, I guess it depends which one I feel more like working on in that moment. But I do intend to have Amicus finished in the next few weeks. Be sure to keep an eye on things. In the meantime, I will love you and leave you. I just wanted to let you guys know that I haven't forgotten about my stories, I've just had a lot going on. Take care of yourselves!

Pixie's Monthly Story Recommendation:

Falling In by littlecorbin | Kuroshitsuji | Sebastian/OC -  Due to a sense of morale and a rather futile attempt at assassinating Earl Phantomhive, the distrusting, American assassin known as Charlotte finds herself a ‘prisoner’ of the Phantomhive estate. Normally such pests would be disposed of by Ciel Phantomhive’s faithful, demonic butler: Sebastian Michaelis. However, there’s something unusual about Charlotte that prevents the Butler from seeking what he desires to know about the woman and her criminal organization. She possesses the strange ability to lie to him—a demon. And that’s not the only unusual quality she seems to possess. This is quite a first for Sebastian, who thanks to Charlotte, starts to feel things he can not comprehend nor control. And for her, well—Being subjected to the butler has her feeling a sense of unexpected contentment she thought she had lost long ago. As the two attempt to investigate one another, they'll come to find that life certainly has its coincidences, and that humanity--especially--persists in everything... Even in demons.

Reviews of the Month:

"After two years, I've rewatched Hellsing Ultimate and came back to the tag knowing I would not find anything new. You can't imagine my excitement and joy when I found there were people still pouring their time and love into this fandom.

And to find this intriguing, emotional, heart-wrenching, lore-filled fic, I can't thank you enough for creating it. I've spent the last 3 days enraptured with the story and the characters. It was so exciting starting a chapter and reading bits of the past and still not knowing fully well what was happening. How, despite everything, Seras kept fighting back with whatever strength she could muster, while trying to move forward but still clinging to that sentiment that she just can't let go, be it by sire-bond or not. And having these new companions by her side to help her grow and become the more stronger (gotta say, Eva and Anastasia are two of my favorites so far, hoping to get to know more about Levi and Edmund). And the mystery behind it all, because not only Alucard but every character there holds a secret, and a motivation behind their moves. Not to mention, the weight of the vampire culture and history having a major impact on their lives. Getting to learn about all of this has been so interesting and fun, I can only thank you for giving fuel to my mind's engine and making it work for hours thinking about what could happen next.

I hope you are doing well, and that life and circumstances aren't being too harsh on you. And if they are, I'm sending whatever strength I have your way and hoping those bad times pass as quickly as possible. Thank you again. Take care~ (And I'm sorry for my bad english.)"

- Noir_o, Go and Conquer

"Ура-а-а-а!!! New chapter! Am I sleeping?! Someone please pinch me.

The new chapter is very good, and I was very worried about Seras. Seras's fear and strong feeling of loneliness are so well described that I wanted to hug her. Seras would rather run from me though.😅 I also enjoyed the reunions between Alucard and Seras. It's damn cute! I have a suspicion that the meeting with these police officers is not the last, but these are just assumptions.

Keep up the good work! I wish you have a good day.😉"

- Sailor28, Amicus

" Most people aren't too happy with their first fics, but I greatly enjoyed reading this, so don't be too hard on it. At first I thought Alucard would just ditch her and let Seras wander the streets alone. I'm really glad that he...or she, in this case, came to get her. It's nice to see that he's finally warming up to her some. Maybe he's starting to realize or sense that she may be a potential mate for him in the future? Or maybe even just a potential fledgling? I wonder what's going to happen. Will Seras stay at the orphanage? Or will Alucard smooth talk Integra into allowing him to make Seras his ward and she can live at the manor?

Great chapter! I really can't wait to see how you wrap this story up! Poor Seras has been through so much in this one fic. I hope she doesn't have to stay and deal with the abuse."

- Oxford Not Brogues, Amicus

" Eu amo as fanfics Sebastian X OC. A sua está interessante...mas ainda não entendi como Sebastian se tornará "inteiro" novamente. Ele vai devorar a alma da menina? Se casar com ela? Ela não parece gostar muito dele. Por enquanto, ela parece ser um peso na vida dele e de seu mestre. E como esse pedaço de vidro pode ajudar?

Bom, espero que você atualize sua fic para que possamos responder essas questões, heheheh"

[Translated]: "I love Sebastian X OC fanfics. Yours is interesting...but I still don't understand how Sebastian will become "whole" again. Will he devour the girl's soul? Marry her? She doesn't seem to like him very much. For now, she seems to be a burden on his and his master's lives. And how can this piece of glass help?

Well, I hope you update your fic so that we can answer these questions, heheheh"

- Aleta Wolff, Reflection

" This was. SO. GOOD! This is the best fanfic I have ever read! You did everything so good, the story was interesting, the characters were really accurate to their personalities and it was just very cool in general! The ending was heartwarming to :) 10/10 this is really great"

- cs3790151, Project Darkness