I am now officially in the ranks of the mentally troubled. I had my first psychologist appointment on Monday. I spent much of the hour analysing how the book shelf filled with children's book and toys was unsymmetrical.

It was irritating me.

So apparently I am suffering from separation anxiety disorder. It would explain why I find it distressing to be by myself for any extended period of time. Why as a young child I could never fall asleep unless my parents were there as I drifted off. Why I found it so difficult to end a relationship that had expired years before. And why I am craving settling somewhere after university is finished. I want and need routine. My life as is feels like organised chaos. I write lists to try and order it, but it's like putting a band aid over a bullet wound. Makes it look pretty from the outside but if you look any further it's just a big fat old mess in there.

Sunday.

Failing is something I have never dealt with very well. I have developed the mentality that it is better to not have tried at all than it is to try and fail like a sad miserable mess.

I was that sad miserable mess today. Fifty-three per cent is technically a pass in a university assignment, but to me it might as well be a fail. It seems the longer I study at university the less results have any correlation with effort applied, or content grasped. Although this particular piece of assessment was a miserable failure predominantly because I didn't follow the Stalinist guidelines on how it was to be submitted.

ex-Boss says he knows some people and that he will have my teachers knee-caps broken. I considered his romantic gesture but decided that Sunday's are meant for rest (and perhaps peace). We spent the rest of the day lying in the park, eating corn off the cob and trying to avoid sitting under trees with shitting birds.

I spent most of the time wondering if I had said those three words with too much haste. I wondered if I did indeed love him or if I just felt, I don't know, something else. I'm leaving for London in seven weeks, I'm insane to even entertain the idea of falling in love, least of all actually do it. I'm terrified of committing to him while I'm away, I don't trust myself. Mainly I don't trust myself to feel anything constantly and so I can't promise I will still feel the way I do about him when I'm a million miles away.

I can't figure out if that is selfishness. If it is opportunism; that I'm always looking for something else, something more. I wonder if I will ever be satisfied enough to have constant feelings or perhaps I will always be an alternating current of emotions, switching every time I feel uncertain or afraid.

A double coffee kinda day.

I have a strict coffee code of conduct. Only one per day and must be consumed before 12pm.

I'm highly sensitive to caffeine you see. Actually, I'm just highly sensitive to everything. But caffeine especially. Breaking the rules this afternoon mean I am now ready to bound out of my chair and start bouncing around the walls like one of those crazy cartoon balls that spring from one side of the room to the other. I remember now why I set the coffee code of conduct in the first place.

What is it about setting rules for yourself that just make you want the exact thing your denying yourself even more? Coffee, cake, chocolate, cigarettes, it's all the same.

There was good cause for my double espresso day however. My friend Tortoise is leaving us for a island hideaway. She is the first to leave, but the rest of us (there are five) will soon follow, but all to different corners of the world. So we are in the process of saying long goodbyes. Actually that is a lie. They are long periods of partying followed by short coffee meetings for a quick goodbye and a few tears.

And at this meeting today, they cornered me. Read my face and deducted that I had started to fall disgustingly fast for ex-Boss. They asked me if I had said it. Tortoise, Puddleduck and Bluebird stared at me "well?". I looked away and hoped they wouldn't notice I wasn't answering.

"Your an 'I love you' hussy" Puddleduck accused. I felt one of the red balloons of happiness bobbing in my chest burst with the prick of her cynical look. Tortoise kept probing. "so, so, do you love him?".

I thought I did. I told him three days ago. And once since.

Why do their reactions make me doubt it? Fuck them I think. Fuck them and their cynicism. Even if ex-Boss and I break up tomorrow, weren't three days of elation worth it?

I couldn't say that to them. Instead I just sat there, blinking back tears and cursing myself for being so sensitive to everyone elses opinion. For valuing theirs over my own. For wanting to please them instead of myself. Fuck them, I'm going to have another coffee and keep falling in love.

First post.

When I was a child I had to be trained to learn to sleep with the light off. I believed that not only was there someone waiting under my bed or in my cupboard, but that they would attack the minute blackness filled the bedroom. I still check under my bed from time to time, but mostly I have learnt to sleep with the light off.

Starting this blog is much the same. Let me explain how.

I am terrified of everything.
E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G

My mind is an endless cinema reel of imminent disasters. Disasters and mistakes. Fear of making the wrong choice has sent me into a mental paralysis. Decisions send me into a frenzy of jaw clenching and fear of failure has my heart racing at a dizzying speed. Writing is mostly too difficult to attempt because for everything I want to say and every word I want to use, I can always think of a dozen different (maybe better) options, and in the end I am confused and terrified by choice.

I think often that I am going crazy. Maybe I am. But I need to do this because I can't keep sleeping with the light on just because I'm scared of what might creep out of the dark.

Welcome to my blog.