I can't be with him because he can't protect me. He doesn't want to. Not even that. He doesn't care enough. I can't feel love for someone who won't save me, who thinks I am not worth the effort. I have grieved for it, but I am done grieving.
Integrity.

I'll choose to be alone before being with a wrong person over and over and over again breaks me, turns me into a person so twisted and damaged that I wouldn't be able to see when something good comes along. I think I am already halfway there, and it scares me.

It was fucking stupid of me not to double check that I had some left, but I ran out of Prozac the other day. It's happened before that I missed a dose or two, but the combination of work stress, losing friends and a variety of other worries have really made this withdrawal hell. Is it withdrawal? Or is it just grief? I've begun to question everything, not trust anything that I feel, wondering if any of it is justified, if I am allowed to feel it, or if I'll just be accused again of emotional blackmail.

I've been so on edge these days it's scared me. I dunno what it is - is it just the lack of pills, is it that my resources are drained to the last drop, my capacities stretched to bursting point - either way I feel as if I am precariously balancing on some precipice overhanging an abyss of complete madness, full of those unnameable swirling colours from outer space that Lovecraft used to write about. I've had awful dreams, I have aggression fantasies so violent they freak me out every time someone pisses me off. This old miserable git that rammed his shopping trolley into Kate without a word of apology: I had a mental film tearing through me where I kicked and smashed the shit out of him for being such a cunt. I am mentally screaming at people who block my way, who seem to whinge at nothing, I want to tear my hair out and hysterically curse the idiocy around me, and at the same time I feel that I am as much part of it and contributing to it as everyone else, and it makes me hate myself.
Am I that much a product of my neurotransmitters (or lack thereof) or is it an inherent character flaw? I have no more patience, joy, interest, enthusiasm.
I have repeated suicide fantasies that invade me, and I dunno if they are an alien force or truly part of me, but they are coming more often now, more forceful, prompted by smaller and smaller things.

Lack of Prozac turns me into a bad person. I can't function on my own resources. I will always be this nutcase, and I will always scare people away, and I will always have this need to get emotionally attached just to keep me wanting to live, to fill me up with something good and approaching something like joy, even if it is entirely delusional. But it will always be unrequited, and it will always push those away I care most about, the more I love them, the more they will hate me. Indifference is what saves my relationships, and what empties me so much that I see no point in continuing.
I can't blame them. I don't want to be around myself either.

I want to scream, but I feel totally alone, isolated and suffocated.

Nightmares Part 2

Moving from ventriloquist dolls straight on to spiders. I've had my share of creepy arachnid experiences, but I have just read a (true) story on Weird Tales that makes me NOT want to go to Japan.
It's the truly magnificient tale of

"The Year of Ninja Spiders"!!!

I am alternating between goosebumps, shudders and hysterical laughter, so you should give it a read, trust me!

And if you're still not creeped out by then, check out the giant "clock spider".
Don't forget to read the comments, too.

The stuff nightmares are made of...

I've always been spooked by clowns, and positively terrified of ventriloquist dolls. I dunno what it is, but even though they are meant to entertain and make you laugh, there is something deeply sinister about them, in a way that stops you sleeping and stare into the dark with your eyes bulging with terror, waiting for one of them to grab your ankle from under then bed or just suddenly be there at the edge of the bed staring at you when you turn around and open your eyes.

(You never know... tonight, when you're in your bed, they might just be there... do you dare to turn and look...?)


Because I apparently like to give myself more nightmares than necessary, I googled "ventriloquist doll" and found this:



Considering that I fear pervy old men as much as I fear these dolls, I am not gonna get much sleep tonight.

Add fuel to the fire

If the recent nuclear paranoia hasn't been doing the job for you, I recommend you check out Barefoot Gen.
Anime is cute, you'd think, but it probably has the most harrowing images ever produced on the subject. I remember seeing a clip from this back when I was 17, and it has haunted me ever since.

Doomsday Clock

"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

If you're an obsessive-compulsive like me marked by the cold-war childhood trauma of nuclear paranoia, then this is the last thing you want to read in the paper - the headline today in the Independent:

The Doomsday Clock: Nuclear threat to world 'rising'
For 60 years, it has depicted how close the world is to nuclear disaster. Today, scientists will move its hands forward to show we are facing the gravest threat in at least 20 years

Fantastic. 20 years, that means about 1984. 1984 is the year I officially shat myself because of the Bomb.

At age 8, I only considered the option of running for my life, should the Bomb drop over Berlin, for a few minutes. I decided pretty quickly that if it came to the worst, I would want to be in the epicentre. Be vaporised in a split second. You won't feel a thing. You'll be gone before you know what hit you.

There is no way in hell I would let my kids see any footage of nuclear devastation, or let them read books about it. If the school did, I would raise fucking hell there. I'm not talking about 16-year-olds. I'm talking about the 8-9-year-olds we were when the schools would use anything for propaganda. I grew up with the tale of Sadako Sasaki who thought she could beat her radiation sickness by folding a thousand paper cranes. There is nothing sweet about this. It was terrifying. I'm talking about the siren codes mounted on the wall in the gym, teaching us to differentiate between siren patterns indicating severe storms, fires, regular bomb raids or just a good old nuclear attack. Every time they tested the sirens, I froze. I had fucking nightmares all the time.

Then there was good old Tchernobyl, not to forget, just to rub in that we didn't just have to worry about The Bomb, but about the Nuclear Power Station as well... it wasn't until after 1990 that we found out about the desolate state most of those stations in the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany's, were in - meltdowns waiting to happen.
The Tchernobyl accident was a weird thing. They didn't really speak much of it... obviously they mentioned it, but then made not as much of a hype of it as the West did. I just remember that just after it happened, I went home from school with a mate, and was suddenly hit by a few raindrops. And my mate just panicked and shouted at me to run home, because it was radioactive rain from The Cloud. Obviously a bit blown out of proportion, but we were kids, and I did run, already envisioning myself with my hair and teeth falling out, my gums bleeding and lesions dotting my skin.

Information management was amazing back in the days. East Germany, if they mentioned much of it at all, told us we were perfectly safe. West German news, however, warned the public from buying any too radiation-absorbing vegetables such as lettuce and mushrooms. It always astonished me as a kid how even a radioactive cloud could be political: be completely harmless while drifting from Russia via Poland across East Germany, only to unload its poisonous load over the fucking enemy of the state.

Funny enough, recently I got totally back into my nuclear paranoia, in a retro kind of way.
I bought loads of books on top of the ones I had already read: "The Last Children of Schevenborn", "The Cloud", "Malevil", Black Rain", "When the wind blows".
Now there is "Children of the Dust" and "Einstein's Monsters" as well.
Then lucky me also found "The War Game" on ebay, which is a 1965 BBC mockumentary about the effects of nuclear war on Britain. It's so dated it's actually funny, but at the same time frightening as fuck, considering how clueless the public back then was about it. ("Strontium? Is that gunpowder?") Even more frightening because it seems like a sinister joke if you have any clue about how bad it would actually be. "The Day after"? Kindergarten entertainment. "Threads"? Yeah, getting a bit closer. But still a million miles from the stark reality. "Once there were five proven nuclear powers. Now there are nine."

I dunno why I am doing this to myself. It's probably the equivalent to picking a scab. I guess I felt safe looking at it now where there was no imminent threat like back in 84. And now this headline pops up in the paper. Just my luck.
Now I just wanna take the whole bunch and lock it up somewhere, and part of me wishes I had never seen it. It's images so horrible they won't leave your mind.
About two years ago, I even found "The nuclear attack survival handbook" in a charity shop for about 10p... I just bought it for the comedy value (if "Duck and cover" means anything to you guys...). I bet the person who gave it up is kicking himself now. Even more so, considering that I wouldn't really need it: surviving a nuclear war is about the last thing I'd opt for. I mean, what's the point!
Give me a good clean hurricane any time. At least after that there is hope for rebuilding, for a future. Nuclear war just leaves the planet fucked for good. There is no future. There will be no healthy babies. There will be cancer running rampant like colds in January. People will be left psychologically destroyed, reduced to animals. There will be no ozone layer. Everything you eat is poisonous. There will be no more natural beauty, just scorched earth and horribly mangled and burnt corpses. No one fuckin wins, so I just don't get why anyone would use these kinds of weapons. Political purpose like back in the 80s, while it was irrational, at least fought for this side of life, meaning you could show footage and make people realise how devastating the effects would be, how pointless a nuclear war would be. (Yeah, I know, considering that it nearly happened, that's actually a really stupid thing to say.)
But give me a half-crazed religious terrorist who doesn't give jackshit about what happens to this world, what would deter him from using them? Sorry, I know I am stereotyping and all that shit, but I'm just scared.

Well, the good news is that being suicidal to begin with will make it a lot easier to snuff myself. Call it optimistic pessimism.

Fuckin hell. Probably the most masochistic post ever. I hoped writing this would be cathartic, but instead I just freaked myself out.
I'm gonna go now and watch Beauty and the Beast.

Dream-cum-nightmare, what's what, dangling carrot, doberman

The faceless man kept lashing at me with a machete, and his slashes are so quick, I don’t realise he has hit me until I see the deep gash in my right hand, in which only pain starts to throb long seconds after I have been staring at it. He is absolutely mental, and to my screams of terror, of frantic attempts to escape, he only responds with laughter. I dunno how often I see him chase after me, with this huge knife, and I can’t help but scream, screams so violent they feel like they are going to tear me apart, and I run, my body running on the energy of fear and panic, driving me to exhaustion, while he keeps up with me effortlessly, like it is only a game which amuses him greatly.

Then I am with this family, and the wife gathers laundry, and I offer to carry her hamper. You don’t have to, she says, but I insist, and I carry it, even though it makes that cut bleed; I want to help so they can see I am good, and they can love me.
They have a party, and I play with their two children, and I am so anxious not to do anything wrong, because if the kids hate me, they will hate me, too.
After the party, I want to help them clean up and prepare sandwiches for tomorrow. They look tired and I ask them when they have to get up. We’ve got to be somewhere by 10 o’clock, they say, and I am shocked and offer to finish the food so they can go to bed. They politely refuse, and I can tell they want to get rid of me, nicely, and I wish this would never end. I could just be a quiet interior of their apartment, their life, I would be no trouble, no trouble at all, and soak up the love in this family. It doesn’t have to be directed at me, just experiencing theirs would be enough for me.
They hug me and say, We’ll be in touch, and we’ll write you. I can never be sure that will happen, most say that to shorten the goodbye, but then you never hear from them again. I know that. I know it will be that way. They don’t know what it means for me to have to leave.

An Arachnophobic's Nightmare... now updated

I have been terrified of spiders ever since I was little. I know, boring phobia, everyone's got it. Go near me with a spider, and I will explode into a deafening scream, but not scream as in silly-girlie-standing-on-a-kitchen-chair-pulling-her-skirt-seams-out-of-reach, but scream as in utter, bone-bleaching, blood-curdling, hair-whitening terror. Serious business. And be warned... I can lose it if someone teases me with a spider. Maze, karate, scratch your eyes out, give you a good thrashing. Take your pick, buddy.

It's. NOT. FUNNY.

www.notfunny.com

dial 0800-N-O-T-F-U-N-N-Y.

I have no idea why, but that's the way it is.

When I was four, I begged my great aunt, in tears, to remove all spiderwebs from the sheds and the house. She told me it was pointless as they would be there again the next day, I told her I don't care, then she'll have to clean them off the next day, too.

I flinch away from spiderwebs to this day. That sticky stuff is the most horrible feeling.

When I was 9, I emptied a box of legos onto my bed and a HUGE grey spider ran out and scuttled into my sheets!!! I could not find it, but I was in terror for the next few nights.

That same year my family went camping, and they hung up my robe into a branch or something after we went swimming. I wore it and when I took it off on my bed, this HUMONGOUS cross spider (they are the worst, and I actually had to squint when I got a link to that pic... made me physically sick) ran out of it - into my bed!!!

I ran full-face into a spiderweb when I was a kid.

I remember seeing Boy (in the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies) getting caught up in a big web full of horrid tarantulas when I was 5-ish. Marked me for life.

Or film clips of some strange African tribe ritual involving people and tarantulas. ICK.

When I was about 15 or 16, I talked to a friend on the phone and played with my shoe. My fingers found something strawy and dry, and I absentmindedly fumbled around with it. Eventually my gaze dropped down on it to see what it was. I found something that looked like broken mini-twigs. At closer look, it turned out it was legs. The striped, crushed legs of a cross spider. I didn't have to inspect the lumpy strawy bit to see that it was the dead, dried out body of a pretty big specimen of a cross spider.
Terror, adrenaline rushed through me as recognition hit me, and I dropped the phone in mid-sentence and screamed. At the top of my lungs. I could hear my friend shouting on the other end of the line what the hell was going on. My dad stormed into my room where I sat curled up on the chair, sobbing and screaming hysterically. He was terrified, he thought I had cut my hand off or something. I swear, I could not calm down for another hour. It's like I switch into utter panic mode. And I have no frickin clue why.

I once found out I had slept in the same room, less than a meter away, from a huge wolf spider in the corner. It was as big as my hand. It couldn't have felt worse to find out that the sandwich you have just eaten was rotten and moldy.

Another time in the same year, I sat on my bed as I spotted a spider in a web in the corner of my room.
It moved about a bit. I think there is nothing worse in the world than the creepy look of a scuttling spider.
I saw it twiddle around in the web, and I froze. Literally. I sat on my bed, crying, and I could not move. I never knew what it was like to be petrified until that day.

Today I listened to The Cure's "Lullaby" for the first time since the 80s... and I flashbacked. I dunno who of you remembers the video, but I remember seeing it when I was a kid. Robert Smith was strategically wrapped in cobwebs and then devoured by a giant tarantula. It inhaled him!!!


And today I also "heard" the song properly for the first time.
Dude, it was a blessing I did not understand the lyrics back then.

Update:

I just have to mention this, though. When I lived in Texas as a live-in nanny, Cory, one of my littluns, played a prank on me. You gotta know, Texas got some icky spiders. Cross spiders are Germany's version of a poisonous spider, but there is truth to the saying that everything is bigger in Texas. Or more poisonous. They've got Black Widows, Brown Recluses, big wolf spiders and tarantulas. Icky icky.
Cory, Chris and Caitlin were about 4 back then, and were starting to develop a proper sense of humor, which is hella cute in a kid. And they started playing all those pranks on me.
They knew I was mortally afraid of spiders. So one day I walk into my room - and my heart stopped.
On my window pane sat a huge bulgy icky spider. I was so freaked out that I only realised at second glance it was one of those toy rubber spiders of the kids. And then I heard Cory giggle behind me.

Cory, you know you are forgiven. :) I really really treasure that memory. Along with your Barney prank (I still have Barney!) :D But that is another story and shall be told another time.

Weird Dreams Part III

You thought she would stop, didn't you, and spare you the twisted details of her subconscious?!
A few weeks ago I had this dream that I found terrifying and vivid and really sick... and sometimes it makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. What it means. If it means anything at all.
My dad, after losing his girlfriend in that car accident, didn't dream at all for a long time. It was like his mind shut down. I experienced a similar thing after a fairly traumatic period in my life... I did not dream anything for almost two years, it was like part of me had died.
About a year ago, my dreams have returned. And to some extent I am grateful, but they tend to be very strange. Or disturbing. I mean, do enlighten me, but there is raging murder in my dreams on a regular basis. Another common theme is that I am in a strange house, usually some friend's or one I have been put into, hostel-like, and that I am shown to a room where I have to sleep. I tend to get lost in that house, or end up getting lost in town by taking the wrong bus, or running as to not miss it. I mean, I dream that ALL THE TIME!

I forget most of it usually, but some night recently I had an awful dream. It started out nice... I was a teenager again, and I walked around a beautiful pond covered in blossoms and surrounded by willows... there were frogs, and dragonflies, and it was sunny, and I dipped my feet in and waded around. I didn't mind the bottom of the pond being very muddy and soft. It was peaceful and beautiful. This picture faded.
A lot of stuff happened in between. I was on a trip with people, like a dream family. We hiked around a lot. We were in Bryce Canyon, and saw all kinds of fantastic rock formations, and I felt the adventurous, free happiness I had on the trek years back... I remember the chimney caves, hollow columns of red rock glowing in the afternoon sun. We seemed to be hiking for ages, weeks and weeks.
There was a complaint about a missing baby. And a missing dog. And it just flew past our ears.

But then things got awfully dejavu. We were in a van on the way home, and went past this little lake. And I realised, that is the pond I had been in. Our car suddenly stood next to the pond, but something was wrong. The air was slimy liquid and putrid. The plants around the pond were dead and grey and rotten, and the smell coming from the pond was nearly unbearable. It was foul water, and I saw the shadow of my former self wading in it, clueless and oblivious, and I started to scream.
Because what I saw floating in the pond was a dead baby, of the sick greyish-green color of the dead, with clouded broken squinted eyes and blackened lips, half eaten by fish, half rotten, the flesh looking veiny and transparent, like foul, moldy jelly.
Next to it floated a dead man. And a dead dog. The reason the pond was dead was because their rotting corpses had poisoned the water. And in all this I saw myself, wading about, blind to everything around me, and I couldn't stop screaming at myself: IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS. IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.


We couldn't leave the corpses in the water... someone had dumped them in there after killing them, but my dream-parent said: "Well, if that person ain't getting them out, one of us will have to do it." I was totally freaked out, grossed out, didn't want to touch them, couldn't bear the smell and the look of them. But we needed that pond, I dunno why, drinking water or something. And the dead ones deserved their rest.
Skip to scene in graveyard. There is an above-ground tomb made of glass we are gathered round. In that tomb were either statues, or the real, embalmed bodies of the dead ones, which looked normal again, like they were just asleep or frozen. The man and the baby and the dog were together, the man holding the baby, the dog curled up in his lap.
Sore peace. Scarred peace. But peace.

That's when I woke up. And those images have haunted me the whole day.