I've been having a tough time with anxiety lately and I think it's because I am so so close to breaking through that ceiling and really achieving my goals that my mind is starting to self-sabotage. At the moment, UEL is going through a huge shift in the academic framework and I have been tasked with changing it. So over the past couple of months I have been working very hard and it has been very choppy. The staff are toxic and they sent a letter on Friday to tell management they disagree with all the changes I am proposing to make.
I have little sympathy for them: it has been three months and only know when they realise it's happening have they chirped up – scared that the changes will be made without them.
I spent Thursday night having some red wine and spinning out about death anxiety but spoke to my friend Rachel on Facebook. Her dad is in hospital getting his kidney removed so that grounded me – making me think about the important things in life.
Emotionally exhausted from the week, I decided to take it easy on Friday but bad sleeping and residual anxiety got me spinning out again. I tried to sleep several times during the day, but I was left exhausted. I left the house to try to get my eyebrows done, but running late I missed my appointment and turned right back round. On the DLR train back, I got the email for the 'Anti-Media Cluster'. My manager Suzanne rang me to ask if I was okay. I laughed it off. Really, it is quite funny. Good for them, I think. They think their letter will make a difference but I sense it will just mean disciplinaries.
I of course forwarded the email to my colleague Julia Dane and to my old manager Stephen Maddison for laughs. Julia range me and we discussed how 'Game of Thrones' the whole situation is – and how we hope that this letter will flush them all out. Imagine putting your name to a letter in which you are conducting gross misconduct by refusing a request. Good for them – I'm proud of them for having their little say, but being that I am in such a strong position it's going to be difficult for them to have any power or influence.
Craig is a schizophrenic, so all my talking was doing him no good. He started to tell me he believed that he might be a robot in a medical trial or that everyone else was not a real human. He then took some ketamine. Bad idea... I could tell he was about to get to a K hole, but we got in a cab and went to the club anyway.
I actually enjoyed it at the Chateau. I had a couple of vodka and diet cokes and danced with some people. Everyone was much younger, but it was good to feel confident, better... Like an evolved version of oneself.
I was so super-tired from the week I went took a cab home at 12.30, but not before some weird girl came onto me and Craig. She started grinding up against us and we went and hid. While she looked for us we slid out for an Uber. I dropped Craig back at his house, probably before the worst of his K-Hole happened and I went back to my place in Woolwich. I finally drifted off around 2am.
Saturday
I woke up around 5am after just a few hours sleep and it was really bad. I was over-thinking death and I started having panic attacks. I went back to sleep, woke up at 10am but then it was pretty hellish from then on. After spinning out, I cried for a bit. Went to the eyebrow appointment at 10.50, had my eyebrows done and felt weepy on the DLR back to my house. I then got home and cried quite a bit. I tried to ring my best friend Andy but no answer. Asked if he would come round. Then I spoke to my friend David who was visiting his sister for lunch. He was very light touch, but it was good to speak to someone. Andy then rang me and spoke to me, which really calmed me down, but I resolved to go see the doctor. I've booked an appointment for Friday (I have previously booked two and cancelled them).
I tried to sleep several times as undoubtedly lack of sleep had gotten to me, but to no avail. So my Saturday was mainly spent trying not to feel so panicky and to try to get some shuteye. I decided to head to David's for the evening. On the tube over, I kept thinking is all we are just 'biomass' – just organic material for nature to use as she sees fit. Everyone on that tube was going to die, including me... Are we all just cattle?
I met David at the Duke of Devonshire pub but I was grouchy because I hadn't slept. I drank a Diet Coke, David a pint of pale ale, but I got him to finish quickly because the noise and people were too much after such a stressful morning. When we got to David's I tried to go for a sleep around 6.30, but I couldn't do it and so we sat down to watch season 11 episode 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
I started crying again, relaying to David how I now realise I've neglected parts of my life like my love and social life, and I don't want to have an unproductive life or not get to where I am going. David understood. He said there was probably a lot in my life I hadn't dealt with, like my absent biological father, like the instances of violence and neglect in my childhood and the deep-rooted guilt and shame we both felt about our sexualities. We are only just over-coming those things.
We drank a lot of red wine and I got very drunk. I let myself do it because a) I wanted a good sleep and b) I needed some relief. At about 11pm, we went to bed and I slept in David's mezzanine bedroom, relieved to get some rest.
Sunday
Initially I woke up at 7am, messaging two guys on Recon – sockperv and bilon23. Because they are both into feet and sock kinks, I decided for once in my life to be sex-positive about the stuff I like and engage them in conversation.
I went back to sleep for a couple of hours, where I had a dream that I was about to go into a board room, but some guy tried to stop me because he called me a drag queen. I was wearing my kitten heels and a bright pink blazer with no makeup. Miley Cyrus was in the boardroom and I told her about the incident in hopes they would make an announcement about homophobia but it didn't happen. We were set the task of doing a test, but I decided to clean my desk as the first task to prove that organisation was one of my strengths, but I looked at the test and realised I couldn't do any of the questions.
I woke up again at 10am and David made me an espresso and I had a carton of orange juice. We watched the Andrew Marr show that was inevitably about Brexit, and after having some leftover pizza from last night and another Nespresso and orange juice, I left around 11.30am and walked up to Clapham South tube station. On my walk, I thought to myself that nature is a time-honoured system and who am I as one advanced monkey to change a billion year old process? I had to accept that I was powerless to it and I had to go through it.
I took the tube to Westfield Stratford where I bought a pair of aviator sunglasses from River Island that have a stunning gradient from blue to yellow and some products from Lush including some bath oils and two bubble bars – Girl power and Blue and Fluffy White Clouds.
We talked more and I told him about my projects – the Atelier and my planned social enterprise Creative Wave. He discussed various opera projects he had been working on and instances where people had plagiarised his work or asked him to stand in for various roles at the last minute. We then talked about our families – he told me his brother died four and a half years ago, his pentecostal sister he doesn't get on with, and his mother his in the throes of grief.
We then watched some videos on Youtube like Klaus Nomi and talked about music we liked, and technique of singing (he started talking about fake folds and thin pieces of skin in our throat). We ordered Chinese (quarter crispy duck, chicken chow mein, stir fry broccoli and beef and black bean) and had a bottle of red wine, and watched The Bitch in Apartment 23 – it's the third time for me. We kept hugging and lying on the sofa, before I insisted on finishing this journal entry. He's still here at the moment, watching The Bitch.
I'm glad he is here... I need some comfort. Anything to reduce my anxiety and make me feel like I am alive...
Internally I am thinking about transformation. I want to get a high fade and dye my hair black - including facial hair. I want to go for full on porn star bod and I am going to book a hair appointment for 12 April to work towards that transformation. This gives me time to up my exercise game and start feeling great about myself. So while I am taking this evening off, tomorrow I resolve to make every day a step towards living my dream. Every day.
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