nI'm hoping this doesn't descend into self-pity, as I suspect it may as I'm working without filters these days. Gasp and shock, I know - me, not filtering my thoughts and comments? The presses, they stop and the newspaper boy shouts from the rooftops!n

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nI’m also just a little bit tired, so I hope this makes sense.n

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nI promised an entry a while back that a) made sense and b) was continuous. This is hopefully that, as I’m getting into a place where I’m actually communicative in a sensible fashion. I’ve been told that I’m still making sense to others, but for me, well, I can see the cracks.n

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nI was chatting with a friend yesterday and she asked how life was going - having known of my recent emotional fun and games. I gave her an interesting analogy for life at the moment, using the old saw “wallpapering over the cracks”, or what I assume to be an old saw. Basically, if my life is a wall or a house, it’s falling apart, the paint is stripping, there are cracks that are growing and the whole thing is threatening to fall to pieces. All I can do about it at the moment is to lay wallpaper over the cracks, sometimes layers of wallpaper, to help hold it together and keep it looking okay, until there’s time to get the builders in and maybe try to actually fix it.n

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nA bit dramatic, yes? Looking at my post from a few weeks ago, where I put in the line about being very scarred - I’m feeling the scars particularly the moment. It’s amazing how we can seem to continue forwards with life and just ignore the things that still matter.n

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nIn the past week, two people have read a piece of work I promised myself would never be read by others until I was significantly over the events it depicts - namely, the rise and fall of a relationship during my writing degree that had a similar effect upon my mental state that being fired out of a cannon would on me physically. The piece is called flawless, and I wrote it as a form of catharsis around a year or so ago. The issue? I read it as well.n

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nMemory: opened. Emotions: changed. Bitterness: gone. Regret? Lord no. Affirmation: absolutely.n

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nSometimes we just can’t break connections, and that’s not the only one, it’s just one that reverberates more than most.n

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nThe last week has been difficult from the outset, but only when I catch myself with time to think. I miss that, actually, as spending time with my own thoughts is a joy, but not so much these days. Exam stress, definitely. Emotional stress, indeed. Life stress, well.n

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nIt all began to crash down a week ago - I was at a Clinical Mixer, a cocktail party for grownups I suppose. Not drinking cocktails naturally, no, just hanging out and about with a generally lovely group of people - some gems more than others, naturally, and some delightful conversation, but overall a lovely evening. I was frocked up in a three-piece suit with a silver pocket watch and a mindful of diamond conversation… and I walked out after a few hours feeling like I’d been emotionally vampired to death.n

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nLet me explain. I can only spend so long with a group of people before I need to escape. Even in the three hours I was there, I focussed on small groups, and had to take two breaks where I went outside onto the balcony and just stood by myself in the chill air for ten minutes to kind of self-renew.n

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nDriving home afterwards I just felt… drained. Normally I can bounce back with a bit of alone time, but it didn’t seem to help. I feel almost like I’m at the end of my reservoir of being myself. I put online the comment that I was a bit sick of being ‘Ben’ - which is true at times; there’s a fair amount of self-loathing in the background at times, and it does spill forth when I’m particularly exhausted. Being the emotional guardian for the world is an amazing thing, and I really do feel whole when I am being the shoulder, the rock, the hand held outstretched, but I’m feeling stretched ever thinner and I’m afraid light is going to shine through.n

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nIn a true-to-form sense, of course, what worries me most about that is that I will be less helpful to others and that they will suffer because of it.n

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nYeah. I’m aware of what’s wrong with the above sentences.n

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nSigh. Psychiatry is affecting me more than it should. I don’t want to hug everyone now, which is a small blessing, but I want to be there for people like these, maybe for the people I know more but… this week I was told I’d be a superb clinician and that I’d be a wonderful doctor, one by a consultant specialist, the other by a patient’s family member. That was nice, and as I tried to joke to a med friend, “it’s all in the smiling eyes” (which by the way - how do people not get smiling eyes? How can you not smile with your eyes?) - but yeah. Like I’ve said before - clowns, you just need to be laughing on the outside.n

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nI have an exam in three and a bit weeks. After that, I will no doubt be social for a few days as we do the “yay finished” dance in company, and then after that, I think I might go write a few essays or something to let my brain vent and calm. I might go for a drive for a few hundred kilometres. I might take up music again. I might go and see a play. Whatever I do - maybe I’ll be able to salvage these walls.n

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nSure as hell it’d be difficult to build a new house at this stage.n

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n-Andiya