Hallo everyone,
I hope you're doing okay. I've had a rough couple of weeks and had to step away from the book for a little while. I'm finding I'm getting caught up in things that aren't really important - such as paranoia over spelling errors and grammatical flaws. This is daft, because that will be fixed during the editing stage by someone who is actually able to concentrate on spellchecking for more than the approx 30 seconds I'm able to.
Below is the first passage of the book. Please note this is subject to change; and this comes with a HUGE TRIGGER WARNING. I appreciate the name of the book makes it very obvious the author struggles with unaliving ideation, but I just want to make sure anyone going through a rough time is prepared before reading it. I can only speak for myself of course but when I've read other peoples experiences with these dark places it has knocked me out for a good few hours, because while I do find I want validation from knowing it's not just me, that realisation is very intense when you've spent your life thinking you're alone.
The next update won't be a sad serious one, I swear!
Thank you once again. I'm back working on the book again now.
***
VIDEO GAMES THAT SAVED MY LIFE: PROLOGUE
***
Sat on a slightly grubby sofa in a bright room that smells vaguely of mold and sterilising wipes, I close my eyes. I'm envisaging a health indicator bar floating somewhere above my head. A slim rectangle filled with red, with one slim pixel of green on the leftmost side. There are two, maybe three hit points left. I've never seen it this low.
I clutch at my arms. Pull my knees up to me. I’m trying to make myself as small as possible like it will crush the feeling in my chest into submission. I look for a reset button somewhere deep inside me, fumble for it with shaking fingers. It’s that, or pull the plug. It feels like game over. I just want to power off. I'm ready to do it. I'm certain I'm ready.
Somewhere in the winding corridors, a screaming woman rants at soft voices. The wheels of a gurney roll by the closed door of the room. The smell of smoke winds up through the cracked window, drip-wearing patients sucking at cigarettes and leaning on their IV stands while the breeze flaps at their polycotton gowns.
Two NHS mental health workers, sat side by side on an equally grubby sofa, look at me from the other side of the room. A perky young woman with bangles, and a kind-faced man in a striped shirt. Their eyes are round, wide, like lone lights peeking through clouds.
Oh.
It comes to me; a crushing realisation of what has just happened, of what has been happening. It's like lifting my head out of water - a mucky sea of sadness and anger, and now I’m looking up at a beautiful clear blue sky, breathing cold air, treading dark water, coughing and spluttering.
I’ve not showered in at least two weeks. My hair is a solid knot, resting tangled on my shoulders in an overzealous dreadlock. Dried blood snakes into my palms and sits beneath my fingernails. Both arms and my left calf sting like hell, I can feel pinpricks of fabric in my tights stabbing into the gaps in my skin. The sadness on my chest has me barely able to breathe, an anvil flattening me into my seat, and my neck feels bruised and sore; my eyes sting with sleeplessness and hurt from crying.
Oh.
I am a fucking mess.
The crisis workers, notepads and pens poised, are still smiling gently at me. A new feeling bubbles behind my lungs, one I’ve never felt before – A feeling of not wanting anybody anywhere to see me like this again. I don't want the way I look now to be stamped on anybody's memory. I don't want this to be who I am.
‘Okay Sarah, we just want to work out how you got to this point, so we can put you with the right team.’
‘’K.’
‘You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to. I can see you've got a bit of blood on you there.’
‘’K.’
‘Is there something that triggered this tonight?’
‘My rat.’
‘Your rat?’
‘My rat died.’
A short pause. I assume they now pen me as insane, but when I glance up the bald one is writing dutifully. He looks up at me, gently, politely. Like he really cares.
I glance above their heads. What do their health bars look like? Full. Green. My heartbeat thuds in my ears like a warning bleep from the speakers of a CRT; critical health, find a potion or save point. Find it now.
‘Sarah?’ The young woman asks gently.
And then the flood comes. I think there are no tears left to cry, but out they come like an unscrewed spout. A gush, a fountain.
‘I had to put him to sleep yesterday. He was my heart rat. He got me through so much. I tripped over him on the stairs and fractured his little pelvis. And he fought so hard but he was quite old already and he was in pain and I had to put him to sleep. And he put his head in my hand because he was ready to die.’
This comes out in-between insane honks of sobbing. And they keep writing, sometimes asking questions. His name was Officer Waffles? Yes, all my rats have titles. He got hurt? Yes, he was my baby and I killed him.
I can feel my tights sticking to the open wounds on my leg. It makes me feel itchy. It doesn't help that, a few hours earlier when my friend was listening to me croaking in my post-hanging attempt voice down the phone, my rat Queen Reverend Teacake had attempted to climb up my bare freshly-lacerated leg like an utter dickhead.
So the death of my heart rat Waffles has landed me in A and E. But has it really? Is it really just that?
‘Do you have family you can stay with or talk to?’ says the man. The top of his head looks so shiny, I kind of want to touch it.
‘I don't want to worry them. And they live back in York and I can't go there.’
‘You can't go back to York?’
‘That’s where things happened.’
For years, I’ve been 'coping' with past traumas by running the fuck away from them.
I'd kidded myself that moving down south was a fresh start, a golden opportunity, a step forward for my career. It had actually been an attempt to very firmly separate myself from shitty memories and people by medium of the M25.
If you don't deal with the monsters you're running from, they will grow stronger. And one day, when you're tired, they will catch you.
My monsters have caught me.
‘Well,’ the young woman in bangles says, ’Do you think you’re ready to talk about those things?’
And I tell them everything. Starting at the most recent thing, all the way back to The Event. And they both nod, listen, write. My heart beats in my ears, hard.
***
Arms stinging with alcohol swab, I walk to my car in the gloomy hospital car park with a series of NHS leaflets and forms scrunched up in my hand. I can feel my neck bruising up already. It feels like I slept on it wrong.
I’m exhausted. Talking about what I’d talked about has allowed my monsters to beat the shit out of me, and now they are smoking cigarettes over my battered body. I want to end it all or hold my beloved Officer Waffles against that part of my collarbone he loved to sleep on. Nothing else exists but those two wants.
I sit in my car for a while, seatbelt on, hands on the wheel.
Embarrassment. anger. hurt.
Guilt.
I’d tried to off myself without even thinking of how upset my dad and brother will be.
I’d also decided to abandon the rats I had left, including Captain Marshmallows who is dying - although prior to the attempt I’d made sure they had lots of food and water and left a note for an ex asking them to rehome them.
Marshmallows has an enormous tumor and is confused. I want him to die at home with me, but now two rats dead in as many days is an overwhelming thought. I don't want to go home in case Marshy is already dead. I don't think I'll be able to handle it right now.
But I don't have a choice, do I?
The next day comes. I've not slept. But I sit on the floor of my living room in only my dressing gown, holding Marshmallow's failing body to my chest.
‘It’s okay sweetie.’ I mutter into the white fur on the top of his little head. ’It's okay for you to go now. I'll be okay. You can let go.’
His body gently convulses, a pulse runs up and down his back, a tiny quiet wheeze from that little body.
And he is gone too.
Power off.
***