Semi-Public Displays Of Mentalism

I am a self-controlled mental. I keep my public displays to a minimum. I have spent so many years being told to be normal.

Well get with the program. I’m not normal. I never was. Capiche?

I was born odd. I’m genetically odd. Just look at my dad and paternal uncle and grandfather and its obvious where the oddness came from.

I’m not normal. But I expend a hell of a lot of energy attempting to look so.

And I do an okay job of it most of the time.

You wouldn’t really notice, most of the time when I go odd, when all the noise gets too much or circumstances overwhelm me. I go quiet, I push myself hard into my seat, I fiddle with whatever is on the table, I twist my fingers around each other, I tap, I close my eyes and breathe deeply, I get my playing cards out and shuffle them, I hum. If in the pub, I tap tunes with the beermats, I go and stand outside with the smokers, I go to the toilet, all of these calm me, help me de-stress. You wouldn’t know how difficult I am finding it to be there. How my brain is about to implode or melt. How I want to scream or cry.

These days my keeping it in is getting harder. I suppose its something to do with having more things to handle. A house, bills, finances, having to remember to look after myself.

There’s the twitching, the shouty, screamy mess. It all hurts, it all hurts so much. Inside and out.

Recently I feel like I’m about to burst.

About to snap.

I go to Lambs house, end up shaking on her kitchen floor, forgetting how to make a mug of tea, biting my lip so as not to scream. The noise from her keyboard, the noise from a neighbours music, unbearably loud. I went to try to drown out the argh. Usually Lamb does help drown it out, but that day even she couldn’t help. On my walk home I yearn for a cop car to jump under. I forget how to walk. I don’t yelp too much.

But that was Monday.

Tuesday. CC comes round, helps me with the washing up that has built up in the last week. I feel pathetic, unable to look after myself at all. I hold the screams in until the door closes after she leaves.

There is a gathering on Tuesday evenings in my local Mind. A gathering of particular people. A group of people who believe I most definitely belong with them, even though I do not have the official say so, a group of people with whom I very much fit. A group I don’t have to pretend at all with, because they understand me, because they are similar.

Today, so loud, new people, noise, chaos, questions, changes, things to figure, and me with less cope than ever.

A recipe for Disaster.

Koi was going to sell me her treadmill as she is moving house and no longer wants it. I have to organise collecting it. I can’t organise boiling a kettle, let alone  anything more complicated, even if its only just moving it down the road. It all gets organised, but I can’t deal with it, so it doesn’t get done. I can’t think. All that is in my head is smashing, smashing me, my head hurts so much, I’ve hit it so much these past few days.

Too much happens.

I can’t process it. I still can’t.

I run to the toilet to shake. I headbutt the walls and the door. I try to speak. To ask to play Fluxx. To do something to help me not crumble completely.

I don’t really know how, just everything got to much. I’m under a table soon. I’m shaking and hugging a purple cushion. Headphones on. Hood up. Unable to speak. Stroking my cuddly toy rat. Singing random songs.

I’ve had bad experiences when I have been in that state before, people trying so hard to help, but just overwhelming me more. This group of people are similar to me though. They understand the need to be left to un-bleurgh oneself before you can manage anything. So they left me for a while until I was okay enough to come out from under the table myself. They then get me a hot chocolate and help me to recover my calm.

These displays of mental oddness are increasing in frequency, intensity and visibility. I had one in art on monday as well.  I can mostly keep it under control. Mostly. I only have them in place where there are lots of odd people who won’t overreact. Hence them only being Semi-Public displays. I used to be able to keep a lid on it in most situations. Now I struggle to keep a lid on it in any situation.

Everything overwhelms me. Everything is too much.

I am frightened lest I have a full-blown Public Display of Mentalism. I am frightened of what could happen if that happens. I’ve had people overreact to my oddness before. It’s not pleasant. I’m scared because I’m so much odder these days. I’m scared I might get locked up. I know that would only make me worse. Noise, Chaos and loss of my set things makes me worse.