Pixie's Chronicle: Life Sucks

Long time no see. Sorry for the delayed blog update, but I've had a million and one things going on in my life as per usual. I really am jinxed, it seems. I had hoped to stick to my usual weekly schedule, but I just couldn't bring myself to talk about everything that's been going on. I've pretty much just been bottling it all up and trying to pretend like everything is normal. Totally not healthy, I know. Good thing that Jowy was there to give me the kick up the ass I needed. I have to wonder how many times I probably would have self-destructed by now if it wasn't for him. 

This blog entry is probably going to be depressing and feature me mainly whining about how life isn't fair, so if that's not your cup of tea, feel free to give this one a skip. I just needed to finally write stuff down and get it off my chest. I can't even remember when my last entry was, and I'm too lazy to check right now, so I guess I'll start from mid-January; that sounds about right. I started having a rough time with my mental health again, seemingly for no apparent reason at first. The fact that I wasn't sleeping properly probably didn't help, and again, I didn't feel like I was getting much time to myself to re-charge my batteries. I suppose that's partly my fault due to me obsessively writing stories to try and distract my mind. But distractions doesn't mean that the problem has gone away. 

Work was causing me a lot of issues like usual. Once again I felt like I kept getting into trouble for everything, and we've all been feeling the tension in the air. A lot of that angst and tension was directed towards our manager. We adore the woman like a sister (we very much view each other as family where I work), but as a manager, she's been getting on our nerves. She's very disorganised, leaves all the tasks to us, hides in the office all day, we've caught her several times watching shows on Netflix when she's supposed to be working, sometimes she just straight up disappears for hours on end, and she can be a massive hypocrite sometimes. For example, she told me off for removing some products when in fact I was only doing as I was told by her, and she had done the exact same thing. I had a giant screwdriver on me at the time and I really had to resist the urge to whack her over the head with it. 

I've also been having a large amount of people coming in and asking for CBD oil with the THC kept in, to which I can only reply, "you mean weed? That stuff that's still illegal? Good luck, mate." Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those people who thinks weed should be legalised, but some people seem to already be way ahead of the programme if they keep coming to see me to ask me for it. Or maybe it's my bloodshot eyes and zombiefied facial expression that makes me look like some sort of drug dealer? But hey, it least it makes me laugh when people do this. It makes a change from the usual stupid requests that people have - like vegetarian fish oil. Ugh. I'll never get over that one. 

I've also been having a lot of creepy men coming in and asking me for advice on viagra. I can't decide if they're genuinely wanting my help, or if they're just teasing me and being purposefully creepy. They proudly claim that it's not for erectile dysfunction issues, but because they want to last way longer in bed. They then casually slip in the fact that they're single. It's my manager that gets the worst of it though. She's super pretty, and literally every guy that comes in to see us seems to fancy their chances with her. One guy even tried to kiss her a few weeks ago. I couldn't believe my eyes. Where do some of these guys get the balls? Are they deluded? Do they really think they're being suave? I'll never understand it. The joys of being female and working in public health. 

Also, I ended up having to work a bunch of overtime again. Joy. I really need to learn to bloody say no. But I always seem to end up manipulated into it. Last week I had no choice because of all the snow. That was a miserable day. I ended up having to walk into work which took me nearly two hours in blizzard conditions. I even fell over and twisted my ankle. Not to mention I nearly froze to death. I was running on only two hours of sleep and no food. I then get into work for my manager to call me and tell me she couldn't make it in, so I would have to cover her shift all day. That meant a nearly twelve hour shift. On two hours of sleep. After having walked in a blizzard. When we'd probably have no customers for that very reason. 

Naturally by the end of the day, I could barely keep my eyes open. I was making stupid mistakes and I honestly felt like I was drunk or something. I even stupidly held my debit card under the scanner on the bus without telling the bus driver what ticket I wanted. He just stared at me like, 'you bloody idiot.' Finally my brain woke up after the machine buzzed at me several times and I finally remember that I needed to tell the driver where I was going. When I got home I then practically fell asleep while in the middle of eating a bacon sandwich. 

Work wasn't much better the next day either. But luckily I wasn't the one left in charge and it was me and my best mate (meaning we got the bare minimum done sssshh!). She wasn't feeling too well, so we were mainly huddled behind the desk together with the heater on full blast, eating chocolate cookies. We then had someone from the psychiatric ward of the hospital come to visit us, and it was fascinating yet horrifying hearing what things were like in the mental health sector right now. Then again, we weren't at all surprised. He was such a nice guy though, and sounded like an excellent nurse. 

We were also looking at some new products that had come in, and one of them included one of those menstrual cups that I've been hearing a lot about. My colleague and I got talking about them as we poked and prodded at it, unsure of exactly how it worked when a sexual health nurse walked in to see two young women poking the box as if it was going to attack them. She was super nice though, and chimed in with her own thoughts on them as she shopped around. I suppose that's something that I actually love about my job. All of the different people that I get to meet and hearing all of their knowledge. While some customers can be awful and annoying, most of them are actually really nice and fascinating people. 

It ended up taking me days to recover from that week though. It took me forever to catch up on my sleep and fix my sleep schedule, and the stress of it all ended up upsetting my stomach, so I wasn't eating properly for a while. I think that was around about the time Jowy said enough was enough and that I needed to stop bottling things up and get some stuff off my chest. It certainly did help me feel better afterwards, especially with how much pent up anger I had built up. 

Oh yeah, the anger. Ugh.

So last week I ended up being angered to a point I have never been pushed to before. To a point where I literally felt smoke coming out of my ears and I was shaking so badly that I had to take five minutes just to try and calm myself down. I don't want to go into too much detail of what happened here in case more trouble ends up arising from it, but basically, someone at work did something very very very naughty. Something that could have killed us and the people closest to us. It was very stupid, and very dangerous, and they had purposefully kept it a secret until they were forced to come clean due to everybody being supicious of them, with one member of staff even calling the police on this person. So yeah, we were all super angry. What's going to happen to this person now remains to be seen. Really, they should be fired and receive a huge fine for what they've done, but I'm not holding my breath. These people seem to get away with everything, and we have no idea how high up this conspiracy goes. All good fun. 

More bad luck also appeared in the form of my grandma having to be rushed into hospital again. Her dementia has been getting bad for a while now, but it keeps being made worse by constant infections. It sends her completely crazy. She was in constant states of confusions and kept having hallucinations. The most heartbreaking one was the one where she was convinced that her husband was still alive, and she kept trying to call the local pub (which was shut because of lockdown) to get hold of him because he was 'late coming home.' Having to remind someone that their husband was dead was just... I wouldn't wish that on anyone. We tried to gently remind her, but she just ended up screaming down the phone at us that nobody believed her before she hung up on us. 

I've never heard her scream and shout like that in the entire time that I've known her. It was so hard, especially because we live so far away from her and we couldn't do much more about it. I don't know why she thought it would be a good idea to move so far away from everybody, especially with all the health issues she has, but my mum and I certainly feel like smacking her over the head for that stupid decision right now. The rest of the family do live slightly closer to her, but they don't bother to help. Every time we try to talk to my uncle about the situation, he's always drunk and doesn't understand much of what's going on. And my aunt... well... she can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned. I know that she's just eagerly waiting for my grandma to die at this point and it's just... beyond words how disgusting the both of them are. Most people find their families hard to get along with and embarrassing, but mine just take it to a whole new level. It makes me feel sick that I share DNA with these people. 

My grandma has had a carer for the past few weeks checking on her, but even that isn't enough anymore. To make matters worse, the carer was beginning to struggle to cope, and she's now had a mental breakdown and is taking some time off. What ended up getting my grandma rushed to hospital in the first place was the fact that a teenage girl had found her wandering around at night, on her own, in the cold, and with no coat on. Luckily, she was a lovely girl who called the police who then sent an ambulance to come and investigate. Needless to say, my mum and I had a heart attack when a strange man rang us asking if we were her next of kin. My grandma was completely out of it, and was convinced that she had just been out shopping with her friend and that the paramedics were police officers. We also found out that she had been harassing the neighbours that night by phoning them every five minutes. 

My mum begged the paramedics to take into hospital, and thankfully they agreed. They managed to figure out that it was an infection that was causing the problem, and we were slightly mad that her carer hadn't spotted this and had just left her, but we also sympathised with the fact that she was ill herself and probably not in the right frame of mind. So now we're stuck for care. My grandma is adament that she doesn't want to go into a home, and legally, we can't force her. But at the same time, she now needs twenty-four hour supervision, especially if these infections are going to be regular occurrences. So now we're desperate trying to figure out a solution. No one else in the family is helping, they're just leaving it for us to sort out. And my cousin is now sniffing around for money and inheritance. They're all acting like she's already dead! I know she's dying, but they're all now discussing who's going to get what and who's going to sort through all her stuff. It's horrifying to listen to.

So yeah, I've been feeling really angry and fed up as a result of this. I'm just glad that I have Jowy and my friends to help keep me sane. I'm still grieving over the loss of my dog as well, so that hasn't been helping matters. That's one area that Jowy has been a great help though, and he's always there to remind me that grieving is okay, but that I also need to focus on looking ahead while taking all of the good memories with me. Jowy gives the best advice. He could so be an agony aunt if he wanted. I love you to bits, Jowy! You're my rock!

Regarding writing, I've once again mainly just been focusing on my Hellsing fics. It really has been the refreshing change that I've needed writing for that fandom. I've been feeling much more relaxed when it comes to writing, and I've been enjoying it again rather than pushing myself to finish a chapter and get it uploaded. My paranoia over Madness Within remains though, and in fact, I think it might have gotten worse. I've been getting so many kind reviews and messages off people, but still, it's always the negativity that sticks out the most. I saw a post on Tumblr that I won't go into too much detail of, but as soon as I saw it, my stupid paranoid brain made me think they were talking about Madness Within. I know that's highly unlikely, but then my brain was like, "what they said must be true if you automatically associated it with your own work." 

So now I'm in a slump over that story again, worrying about its quality. I have no idea how that story became so popular, and it has me questioning all the more whether I'm doing a good job. Are my portrayals of serious issues accurate? One review in particular caught my attention, and I'm wondering if what they said was true. Am I pandering too much towards the romantic and sexual tension, foresaking reality as a result? What if I'm being one of those people who romanticises mental illness? Am I becoming the very thing I wanted to challenge when creating this story? I appreciate their opinion, and it certainly wasn't my intention to come across that way, but have I perhaps completely creatively misfired and not hit my target? 

It's all left me with a huge headache. I'm still working on the sequel, and I just hope that I can become more confident in what I'm doing, and maybe even improve upon things if I am making these mistakes. Thankfully, it seems as though I have now got myself a beta reader for the Madness Within series. So be sure to give a warm welcome to keysmashcharlie! They've kindly offered a second pair of eyes and a second brain to my work, which should hopefully take a huge weight off my back. Especially with how popular the first story has become, I mean, just look at these FanFiction stats!

• Views: 378,871
• Reviews: 1,215
  
• Communities: 2
  
• Favourites: 1,049
  
• Follows: 1,291
  

So y'know, no pressure ahaha!

I now have some much needed time off work, and I have already caught up on my cleaning and laundry to make sure that was all out of the way. Now everything around me is fresh and that allows me to think more clearly. I can't focus in a messy environment, but yet mess is the only thing I always manage to successfully create. But anyway, I'll finally be getting some much needed work done, as well as some relaxation time. I'm playing my video games a lot more, particularly Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. I have a problem. 

I hope that you guys are all doing well, and thank you so much for all of your kind words of encouragement and patience. I'm sorry that I can't reply to each and every one of you individually, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate your kindness. Stay safe out there.