The Rust Of Life

"Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power." -Anon.


January 2, 2008.
It is a Wednesday, and a very hot one at that. I am sitting on my bed at dad's house, my legs are crossed and I am leaning over my laptop, typing into the chat and on Wordpad. An idea occurred to me earlier, and a certain Penguin member encouraged me to write about myself. So, here I am.

As I look around, I see that it seems to reflect my personality; jumbled.
The bed is a double, with a bright watermelon pink sheet. The gentle purple satin doona is scrunched up in the middle of the bed, after suffering a thrashing last night by my tossing and turning.

My teddy bear, Homer, is lying deflated next to me, and his arm is making a very good cushion at the moment.
A nameless plush bunny sits with his large feet neighbouring his ears on a wooden bed-side table, accompanied by a lamp that someone unplugged and that I'm in no mood to fix.

The duchess and wardrobe are a matching design, and are both draped with miscellaneous homeless items. My pink T.V. sits dormant in the corner, near the open window that my dad's girlfriend, Darlene, was just talking to me through. In general, this room is very normal. Shame the inhabitant isn't.

There are two small packets of chips lying on my blanket.
One is labelled "Chicken sticks", the other "Cheese rings". I look at them occasionally, pondering whether or not I should open them.
I'm hungry... but is it safe? Is anything safe? I don't know anymore.

I am recording today because I feel that it has been a very bad day. Well, in my books, at least. My mind has been a rollercoaster...
10 a.m. I think that's when it started.

I had received a bizarre text message from mum, something about Alzheimers.

My mobile phone, a pink Sony Ericson from 3 that has served me over a year, is my only form of clock, since I do not have one in my room and my laptop was charging. I read the time, and it made me feel hungry. I walked into my brother's room and told him it was time for a snack. 10 a.m. is snack time.

We went and got some chips, and returned to his room. He was playing the old Eyetoy game that had been hidden in his room all that time, while I was lead to believe it was lost. He was jumping around like a monkey as he tried to win round after round of the interactive games with the little Eyetoy camera capturing his every move.

I also grabbed a Pepsi from the fridge. It was a can of Pepsi Lite, and when I put my thumb on the can, it touched something coarse.

This is what set me off. Although one would assume it was nothing, I didn't. I began freaking out, thinking it could be anything. After I ate my food, I remembered this, and began to feel nauseous.

I hadn't eaten since ten. Dad had told me, when he left for work, to make my own lunch because Darlene was busy packing for her trip to Darwin. It was half past two when I finally decided to eat. I was starving, but scared. I'm always scared. Scared of illness and disease, scared of mistakes, scared of loss. I thought I might be a hypochondriac but that doesn't seem to explain why I fear people are dead, why I fear being teased. When I couldn't put off eating anymore, I went and found some lunch.

I simply had Easy Mac. No muss, no fuss. And it didn't produce a whole lot, so I didn't have to eat a whole lot. I scooped the hot pasta into my mouth gratefully, and I burnt my tongue in the process. I slowed down after a few mouthfuls, and that gave me a chance to think about something other than "Food, food, food." And the first thing that came to mind was being sick.

"What if that rough thing I touched was poison? What if I throw up? Throw up... throw up... I'm going to throw up."

All of a sudden, my heart was beating faster.
"A symptom of being about to vomit," I thought.
I struggled to swallow my food.
"Another symptom."
Oh my god! I'm going to be sick!


I never did. I collapsed in bed, sat on the toilet, tried to eat, tried not to eat. Everything in my power to try not to vomit. And here I am. Lying limp on my bed, slowly pushing Chicken Sticks into my mouth and hating myself.

Just another day in the world of Lucy.




Crits, Comments and Questions are welcome. Try not to be harsh if you crit, though. As I told Pingi: "I wrote this so people would understand, not say 'this is shit, delete it'."

Aww. -hugs- xD

This was horrible to read, and not because it was badly written, or anything like that. It was horrible because this is happening to someone I feel like I know closely.

All I can say about it is that you know that people are there for you. In real life, on here, we're all willing to support you. Whatever you need help with, you can always talk to us. We'll be here to help you whatever the problem is.

-Mat

P.S I'm still curious about the Alzheimers thing.

The text message went something like:

"Joan, just a quick message to wish you and Brian a Happy Easter and all the best for 1982, from all of us at the Alzhiemers Society."

From my very own mother!

This was definitely heartwrenching to read. You are able to pull emotion out of a hat and throw it at the reader. I feel like I got to know you in the space of a short web page.

You have great talent for description. I don't usually think of teddy bears as deflated, but you wrote that and I knew exactly what you meant.

Echoing what Mat said, you are loved. We're here for you, just on the other side of the computer screen.

1982? Hmmm....

Hmmm I think I'm going to do this critique in two parts. ^_^ One, harsh evil me, two, sympathetic and knowing me.

One

Even if it is about an important moment in your life, you have to make it so that the reader cares, as well. You have to make us not only understand, but live it with you. Otherwise, it comes out like a blog post, and it certainly did that.

Two

I'm only left thinking that perhaps you have anxiety disorder? I have (had?) that, so I know how crippling it can be. I actually wrote my own non-fiction piece on an event that happened surrounding the anxiety. If you care, it is on YWS. (Don't Panic is the title.) Not eating is never good. A year ago to the day, I stopped eating, and couldn't sleep. Finally, Friday, I started eating again. I ate an orange, and will never eat an orange so yummy as that was. Everything tastes really good when you haven't eaten in about a week, haha. If you do have problems with anxiety, paranoia, OCD, refusing to eat, and you would like someone to talk to about those things, feel completely free to PM me. I will listen and help and comfort to the best that I can. ^_^ In any case, I suggest eating, even if you force yourself to. I know I had times where the concept of eating sickened me. "You want me to put that in my mouth and.. swallow it!?" It was terribly strange. But you should eat, or else your body will freak out.

Don't take "one" critique so seriously, though. As you said, your purpose was to make people understand; and you did that. So, you succeeded in your purpose, and isn't that all that matters? It doesn't matter what I think, if you did what you had set out to do.

Thanks for all the support, guys.

As for making this actually reading-worthy, I think that it's a bit of a fresh subject, and it's hard to write about. Maybe in a few years...

I really did like this it is good to hear someones thoughts as they go about their day and how ever much we hate to admit it everyone Else's lives are interesting to read.
Well done for sharing not an easy feat.
loved the fact that you were real with us gave me an interesting look into your life and your thoughts.