Pixie's Chronicle: More Mental Breakdowns

Okay, I am bleeding from somewhere in my mouth right now, and I can't seem to find the source, so I apologise if this blog entry feels a bit all over the place. For those who said, "isn't it always?" then... screw you! I'm a writer and I'm good at putting 'dem words on pages. Honestly, it's probably coming from my lip since I've gotten into the bad habit of chewing on it again - it's an anxious tic of mine. Yeah, my anxiety ended up crashing down into depths that I didn't realise were possible these past few weeks. Sorry if this feels a bit boring at this point, but I like to try and be as honest as I can about my mental health struggles in the hopes that maybe it will help someone out there feel less alone. A few people have commented that Madness Within has helped them with that, so here's hoping my weird ass rambling helps too. 

Things had gotten to such a bad point where I was struggling to go outside again. Everything is so loud and noisy again, and there's just too many people all of a sudden out and about again. Pixie doesn't cope well with other humans. I ended up forcing myself to take a trip into town on one of my days off. I needed to pick up my medication from the chemist anyway, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and pick up some random odds and ends that I needed. I pulled on my big girl pants and went out alone into the scary wide world. For the most part, it went okay, apart from being attacked by flying ants. Did I ever mention how much I hate summer and bugs? Anyway, the real kick in the teeth was when I was just walking along the street, minding my own business, when some random old guy suddenly pretends to lunge towards me. Naturally, I flinch away. He then bursts out laughing at my reaction and runs off. Yeah. THIS IS WHY I HATE GOING OUTSIDE! I attract all the strange people that just love to trigger me!

My workplace was nearby, so I hid in there for an hour afterwards while I calmed down. While there, I found out that my co-worker had not only broken her foot over the weekend, but she had just been rushed to hospital that morning because she'd had an allergic reaction to the vaccine. Luckily, my vaccine went okay, and I didn't even experience any side-effects like I usually do other than an achy arm. But yeah, my colleague had apparently been struggling to breathe and her arm where the needle was inserted swelled up to the size of a baseball by all accounts. Apparently she still has to have her second dose, she just now has to have it done at the hospital under close medical supervision so they can act quickly. 

We'll probably have to keep that a secret from a few of our crazy customers though. I had a woman come to see me just before I had the vaccine, ranting about how the vaccine contains 5G and they're using it to track us all. Who 'they' were and why they would want to do that, she never specified of course. I just stared at her blankly the whole time, trying to keep myself from smashing my head against the wall. Something like that would probably kill less braincells than listening to this woman rant about her conspiracy theories. Don't get me wrong, I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but some are just downright harmful. The moon landing being faked? Yeah, that's stupid, but it's not hurting anyone. The earth is flat? That theory is good for a laugh. Vaccines are dangerous? Now that is harmful. Ugh, just... don't even get me started on anti-vaxxers. Ack!

Stupidity seems to be extra contagious lately, as I had another customer wanting me to prescribe him lithium. Yeah, that metal that you only really get in some bi-polar medications. It's not something that can be dished out to people willy-nilly. I explained that, no, I cannot recommend lithium to him, he then replied with, "Oh it can't be harmful because it's natural." iT cAn'T bE hArMfUl BeCaUsE iT's NaTuRaL! I swear to god, if I had a penny for every customer who said that to me I'd be a billionaire by now. NO! Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, has an upper safety limit, and just because it's 'natural' it doesn't mean that you can just consume huge amounts and not suffer some form of consequence. I ended up getting a bit snippy with him and retorted, "Yeah? Well so's uranium." He didn't look too pleased after that. 

Fruits, vegetables, vitamins, minerals, all of that stuff that you're taught is good for you, can have adverse effects if you consume too much of it. Take it from me, a trained professional. Heck, it's even bad to cut fat, carbs, protein and whatever, out of your diet completely for long periods. Not all fat is unhealthy, and not all unhealthy fat is unnecessary. You need fat to shield your organs and keep you warm. You need carbs for energy, and you need protein to get all of your essential amino acids that keep your body functioning. I'm getting way off topic here... My point was supposed to be that customers have been frustrating. And rude too. While I was in the middle of a consultation, some random woman came up behind me, hit me on my arm to get my attention, and proceeded to start questioning me about something. Before I could 'patiently' remind her to wait her turn, the other woman I had been speaking to stormed off in a huff over the incident. It broke my brain. 

My mental health review arrived which turned out to be a complete waste of time because the nurse seeing to me didn't have the authority or training to do anything. Like? What was the point of assigning her to my case then? We just ended up wasting each others' time. As a result, I had to book an appointment with a more senior doctor who specialised in mental health. Okay, so why wasn't referred to him in the first place? I give up. But yeah, I actually managed to open up a bit and be honest about just how much I've been struggling lately. He wasn't keen on the idea of changing my medication which was a huge relief for me. Sertraline is the only one that works for me with the least obnoxious side-effects. Plus, I'm on the strongest dose, so it would take forever to ease me off it and get me onto something else. He tried to prescribe me propranolol again, to which my response, of course, was, "Hell no!" Keep that stuff away from me! I don't know how many times I have to tell them this. 

Don't get me wrong, if propranolol works for you, then great. I would just rather deal with the anxiety than the side-effects. Sure, it works in that it takes the edge off anxiety disorders, but night time is when that drug comes out to play; at least for me and everybody else I know who has taken it anyway. I already have bad, vivid PTSD nightmares, I don't need this drug adding to it, thank you very much. My friend was briefly on it too, to help treat her OCD, and she ended up having hallucinations as well as the nightmares. Every night at 4am on the dot, I would jerk awake in a cold sweat and in an absolute state of panic. And that's the story of why I refuse to take propranolol ever again. The end. 

So in the end, the doctor finally relented and has put me on a list for long-term psychiatric help (after 6 years of me nagging them to do so), and put me on sick leave from work for 2 weeks. I'm just entering my second week now. Being off work has been a relief, as that was the main trigger for my anxiety lately it seems. Apparently my brain just needs to catch up and have time to process and prepare for all of the huge crowds of people that are out and about again. I've been trying to take small shopping trips to get accustomed, but those haven't been going too great. But just like every long period of anxiety, the inevitable crash that is depression soon followed. 

The straw that broke the camel's back was when one of my life-long friends announced that she was buying a house. It's stupid, I know, but I ended up comparing our lives and felt lousy as a result. She's always had her life together, has a brilliant job, and is now getting her own place?! I'm not going to lie, I was massively jealous. Not in the way that I had ill feelings towards her, just more like a, 'awww, I want what she has too', kind of way. Because here's me not even able to go into work because my brain doesn't work properly. I can't enter a store without shaking, I can't answer the door without freaking out, I can't use trains, and I can barely just manage to use a bus without crying and climbing out the window to escape. I feel so pathetic. I can't even function properly as a human. There's so many simple tasks that I just cannot do because of a stupid glitch in my brain that makes me perceive most situations as a dangerous threat. It's like I constantly have the Sonic the Hedgehog drowning music in the background of my life. I'm sure that music put the fear of god in most people who have played those classic games. But I digress. I pretty much spent 2 days wallowing in self-pity until Jowy managed to snap me out of it. Lord knows somebody needed to talk some sense into me. 

My 'time off to relax' didn't get off to the best of starts since I lost my glasses on the first day. I have no clue how I managed it. I put them down on my bedside table just like I do every night before bed, but when I woke up the next morning, they were gone. I figured I must have knocked them off somehow in my sleep, so I searched the area, but found nothing. It didn't help that I need my glasses to, y'know, see properly. So most of my searching consisted of me fumbling around on my hands and knees, patting down every item that came into my reach. I started to wonder if my my mum or my brother were pranking me, but apparently not. My brother helped me search, but even he couldn't find them. Then, 3 hours later, I finally found them on the opposite bedside table to the one I usually leave them on. *facepalm* Not exactly an incident that helped my stress levels. 

Moving on, I decided focusing on Animal Crossing: New Horizons would be a good way to calm myself down. But my island curse continued to a point where I finally snapped and deleted my entire game data. I started a new island from scratch, which from the very beginning, was already better than my old one. This new island of mine is called, 'Pixie Isle', and there seems to be no curse on this one, knock on wood. I've been having so much fun starting from the beginning, and I now consider my previous island to be a practice one and this new island is the real deal. I don't think I'll even end up doing that much drastic terraforming since I like the natural shape my island has. Now I just need to get all of the fruit and flowers again. Oh yeah, and get Jay to move in. I still have no idea how Jowy managed to get hold of his amiibo card for me. I just love that jock bird. So yeah, if you ever wanted to know who my favourite villager is, it's Jay. No idea why. I guess because he was one of my first ever villagers when I first got into the series back when Wild World was released and I just got attached.

Last week also marked Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th anniversary, so you better believe that Jowy and I were all over the live orchestra they held in celebration. The music from that series always kicks ass. Seeing Crush 40 perform again was amazing, and I loved how they included my favourite song, I Am All Of Me. Not many people are too keen on that one, but I love it. I know the whole thing off by heart... then again, I know most Sonic music off by heart. I'm a nerd, I'm not even going to deny it. This put me and Jowy in some sort of Sonic binge mood. The trailer for the latest game seems interesting. Sonic Colours is also getting a re-master, which just seems weird to me. The game isn't that old at all, and the original still looks gorgeous. I can think of quite a few titles that are in more need of a re-master, such as the Adventure 1, Adventure 2, and Heroes. And for goodness sake, will they give us a chao garden game?! Even if it was just a simple mobile game, I guarantee it would be a hit. Sega, just hire me already! 

Onto the topic of writing, I've managed to update Reflection, and you can read the latest chapter by clicking here. I have also posted a map of the character, Flora's, neighbourhood as it actually was in the late nineteenth century. A lot of the places I mention in that story were all real, and you can find them all on this map, which you can check out by clicking here. The history aspect of that story has been so much fun. After university, I was kind of burnt out in regards to the subject, but now I'm getting back into it again. I think having to write so many essays had sucked the fun out of it for me for a while. Especially since my dissertation supervisor was a bit rubbish at her job. But now I can study what I want, when I want. 

Although I didn't get to quite update Double Trouble this week like I had wanted, I'll be getting the new chapter up by Monday. So close yet so far, but oh well. I appreciate everyone who voted in my latest Hellsing poll. Castles In The Air is currently winning, so get voting if there is a story idea that you would like to see soon. I'm also hoping to update Amicus very soon as well. Someone has offered to do a French translation of that story, which is awesome! As for Go and Conquer, well, I'm kinda of stuck on that one at the moment. This next chapter for some reason is causing me so much trouble. It's not writer's block per say, since I know exactly where I'm going with the story, but this chapter just hates me. It will not write itself properly. I've re-written it I don't know how many times at this point. So yeah, an update on that one might take a little bit longer. 

I should have some more OC profiles up on my blog soon, including ones of Lily and Luna from my story, Double Trouble, since they seem to be very popular characters. I always seem pretty good at creating memorable child characters, Lily and Luna being the latest. Before that, Sky from The Future Disaster was always another popular one. I just find sassy kids hilarious, and that's usually what I always use as a rough base. Plus, Lily and Luna are the daughters of Alucard... how could they NOT be a handful? Insanity can be genetic you know, lol. 

I just hope that my anxiety sorts itself out soon, especially in time for when I go back to work. I'm already a lot better than I was a week ago, thanks to a massive anxiety attack which seemed to get most of it out of my system. I already know that I'm going to be walking back into a disorganised mess, since that's what I'm always left in charge of. My beautiful desk, notice board, and cupboard full of CBD oils are probably ruined. I have no faith in my colleagues to remain tidy lol. I even left a little sign in the cupboard, saying, "Keep clean, or [Pixie] will eat your spleen." So yeah, I'm probably going to have to eat a lot of spleen when I get back. I swear they do it on purpose because they enjoy me having a perfectionism meltdown. It's a running gag at work how neat and orderly everything needs to be for me. But hey, I never lose any paperwork. 

Anyway, that's pretty much all that I've got to say for this entry. I hope that you guys have all been taking care of yourselves, and remember to get yourself vaccinated. A very happy birthday shout out to LycoRogue and ChibiRinni who have always been awesome friends and talented writers! You guys rock! And a final happy birthday to Jowy who celebrated his last week!  

Reviews of the Month:

"Omg! Holy fuck! I am so GLAD Alucard finally made an entrance! It's so relieving that he is somewhat involved in the matter, tbough he still doesn't know about the twins. I was hoing he would be the one to go after Seras, but I hadn't thought that he could act just as possessively as Seras. Though, I don't think it's a good idea for Integra to send out humans to do the job either considering how Seras reacted before and doesn'ttrust anyone! This is going to be so tense! I can't wait to see what happens next! I don't know why you were disappointed in this chapter, I absolutely loved it! And I love how you write Alucard! He feels cannon."

- Oxford Not Brogues, Double Trouble, FanFiction

"Amazing as always! I love reading your works, and the tension around Alucard and Integra is really well done here! I also think you've done a fab job with showing Seras as powerful without making her out of character. I look forward to the next chapter."

- Asharf, Double Trouble, Archive Of Our Own

"I thoroughly enjoyed reading this! :) I really love how kind and patient Chat Noir was... Swoon! <3"

- miraculousluvbug, Experimental Kiss, Archive Of Our Own

"I just binged this whole story, and had completely forgot it was part of a trilogy when I tabbed into the last chapter.

I had so many thoughts about how you could possibly wrap it up, and I have recieved angst and a cliffhanger.

MAGNIFICENT

Poor Chat, but he's beginning to understand, even if he doesn't conciously realise it.

Also,

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Thank you.

Cheers."

- Alliterationisfun, Madness Within, Archive Of Our Own

"With the amount of horses in London it's no wonder the streets were caked in manure! That's another on the long list of things movies of the time period miss out. It's a shame because the manure was actually quite significant, leading to widespread issues with flies and later contributing to skirts getting higher!

Also! I like your subtle mentioning of health problems at the time like small pox and rickets. The setting of this chapter reminded me of a film called Angela's Ashes. There's a book too, have you seen or read it? It's set in around about the same period but in Ireland. It follows the childhood of a boy who grows up in poverty. It's a brilliant movie for a history lover and just in general to be honest.

I also really like how you had Flora demonise wholegrain bread. Of course that's widely considered the healthier option but hey. White bread looked better so who cares what's in it, huh? Rich victorians were crazy.

Really great characterisation in this chapter. That dog deserved so much better. I'm worried about John too. Without his supplies, surely he won't survive the storm! How awful for Flora if she lost him or got into trouble for losing the supplies. I look forward to next upload!"

- A. S. Oswald, Reflection, FanFiction