FIVE

Sorry I ghosted you. It was an accident. With every day looking the same, I never realised it was 100 days without texting you back already. It felt like maybe three days, and I know this isn’t a good excuse either. I hope you didn’t spend too much time worrying about something you might have said or done that made me ignore you for so long because there’s nothing, really. But there’s also nothing that could have woken me from my slumber.

You should know I’m not here at the moment. The body that gets up way too late in the morning and hurries to work is just a highly functional model of someone that used to be me, but I’m currently sleeping.

There is no space for feelings in this crouched lumpy shape that adapted so well to sitting at a desk for eight hours or more at a time. The body enters the office building when it’s still dark and leaves when it’s dark again. The face shows no emotions because no one can see them anyway.

They only turn on the streetlights late at night now to save energy. Did you know that light pollution is considered one of the main causes of insect and bird decline?

I sincerely hope you have forgotten me by now. Or maybe you’re relieved that I haven’t texted you back any more because you didn’t know how to tell me it’s not going to work out anyway. I can’t handle rejection very well at the moment.
So sorry about the ghosting, though.

FOUR

You are just so beautiful. The way you’re looking at this weird art piece you don’t quite understand yet, baffled. There’s nothing like it. I would love to take a photo of you right now, but I know it would merely capture a bleak copy of what’s in front of the lens and not this very moment.

You are just so beautiful. When I wake up in the morning and turn around and there you are. Your head has almost disappeared in the soft pillow you love so much. Your eyes meet mine, you must have been awake for a while. We start the day with a kiss and a deep sense of knowing that everything will be alright for a very long time.

You are just so beautiful. You’re watching two dogs play in the park and the sight amuses you so much you colour the whole world around you in laughter. There is a pureness to your joy that almost annoys me sometimes, but only for a short while, until you infect me with it. It’s almost like you put the package every woman in this world has to carry in a corner because you needed to breathe and forgot it there.

You are just so beautiful. You taught me to appreciate the cathartic feeling you get after a good cry. Sometimes you cry for days, and you tell me it’s your way of working through something intense, and I’ve known you for long enough now that I don’t get worried any more and I just hug you and give you space and then hug you again and maybe cry a little too until it’s all fine.

You are just so beautiful. I love you.

THREE

A faint shiver. I had always wondered what it would feel like to accidentally brush up against you on a busy street. To smell your hair for a moment without you noticing. You would be on your way to another interview and forget the stranger who didn’t step out of your way fast enough within minutes, while I would cherish this moment for the rest of my life. I’d lie awake at night and think about the look you gave me and try to remember your perfume so vividly that it would almost be like you’re lying next to me and I would caress every inch of your naked body in my mind.

It’s another weekend without plans. Without friends. It’s raining. I hope you didn’t forget your coat.

After a nice but lonely dinner (chicken and broccoli, because carbs in the evening aren’t good with my anxiety) I turn on the TV and there you are.

You’ve just finished another film and are now show-hopping on a nationwide promo tour. I can see you’re tired today, but the makeup department did a good job. Common people won’t notice.

I hope you’ll be able to rest soon. It’s not healthy to overstrain yourself like this. You should look after yourself. I wish I could be there for you. I’d cook you a nice meal and run you a bath and hug you and tell you to take it slow, my dear.

Did you read the message I sent you on Twitter?

TWO

Have you heard about the mailman? They found him yesterday.

His throat was cut. Blood everywhere. Fire brigade opened the door after the dogs got nervous.

We went without mail for two weeks and didn’t even notice because nobody writes nice letters anymore and the absence of uncomfortable ones isn’t something we’d choose to notice.

Who would brutally murder a mailman?

ONE

When the demons go to sleep after the last night of October, the ghosts come out. November, the month of dark remembrance and foggy contemplation. Long, black nights turn into thick grey walls of unfinished weather that occasionally get interrupted by a low and unforgivably glaring sun that almost blinds you on the little walks around the block you have to force yourself to every day now – until you’ll give up the fight altogether in about two weeks time as always. 

“I could make pumpkin soup this week” you keep telling yourself, but it feels like so much effort to cut up a whole pumpkin all for yourself and the last three pumpkins you bought got rotten because you didn’t want to waste them because there wasn’t an ideal day for pumpkin soup, or you were just too tired and maybe a little sad as well.

It’s too cold for nice thoughts now but still too warm for the ever so satisfying experience of “coming in from the cold”.

The light is starting to disappear in the early evening already, and you wonder if she’s feeling lonely too at the moment. She’s probably sitting in the old green armchair by the window right now and finding comfort in a book she’ll only want to talk about after she’s finished it because she’s always found it hard to make up her mind about ongoing experiences.

You pour yourself another cup of coffee even though you know it’s late, and you won’t be able to sleep for a long time now and also you haven’t eaten enough today, again. Your stomach feels weird, and you’re breaking a sweat, but you don’t want to get up from the table because you’ve been sitting here for three hours already and if it wasn’t for the street light outside your kitchen window it would be pitch-black all around you and the light switch is on the other side of the room and there’s no way you can get up from the table right now.

In your head, she’s still reading with a faint smile on her face. The book must be good. Someone’s coming in, turning the lights on, and she’s looking up and really grinning now as she’s looking at the face that has been making her so happy in the past few months and will keep her safe all winter.

“Dinner’s ready, you coming?”

Getting tired of your own shit and making the best of it: my 2017

Trigger warning: PTSD, sexual assault, depression

January/February/March: AWOLNATION- Run
The year started with my PTSD getting completely out of control. Most days I couldn’t eat at all and if I managed to force down some solid foods I’d throw them up again anyway. I was slowly starting to realise that the two “unfortunate” incidents from 2016 actually mean full-on sexual assault and nothing else and that none of that was my fault and that I did say no about 15 times and that letting it happen in the end didn’t mean consent and that those men should have been aware of that. Thus, I started to run again. At first, I had to throw up every 200 metres because the flashbacks became too overwhelming. But it slowly got better. I managed to pick out one repressed memory at a time and to work through it during my runs.
Apart from this utterly insane idea of self-therapy I also had to try to keep up with the final year of my BSc(Hons) Psychology and the completion of two independent research projects (fuck, that one tutor and I… we HATED each other). Now, almost one year later, I have no idea how I did it but somehow I did it.
Oh, I also turned 24, played Monkey Island for the first time and started watching every film starring Colin Firth in chronological order (if you know where I can get hold of 1919 please contact me ASAP! #FromFirthtoLast).

April/May/June: Manic Street Preachers – Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
As it my degree was definitely coming to an end by now my days were mostly filled with studying and researching and revising and studying some more. This spring was particularly hot and as my flat is on directly under the roof I usually studied naked on my isolated balcony, ooweee. I also continued to run like a madwoman and even managed to complete a 10k or two.
I think the most profound experience in these three draining months was my reading Amanda Palmer’s ‘The Art of Asking’ which literally changed my life in that I learned that it’s okay to feel and behave like trash from time to time and that everyone is allowed to create art and that it’s fine to need and ask for love and that some people who like you don’t actually SEE you.
The book helped me to accept myself more and to feel free to do with my life and body whatever I want. I really got into playing with ropes now and spent many a night getting stoned while listening to the Manics and tying myself up.
Unfortunately, my dog broke his leg in May. Thus, I had to look after him while my mum was at work and I often got up at a quarter to arse in the morning in order to go for a run before it got too hot outside. Again, I have no idea how I managed to revise for the most important exam of my life who cares because I passed.

July/August/September: The Dears – Lost In The Plot
After having completed all my studies and exams I spent two weeks leading a workcamp in France. It was my first time as a leader and I was scared shitless and cried for two days before I went to the camp. But my group was exceptionally great and we had no serious problems at all. I made new friends, ate grilled boar (I understand Obelix now), and watched the fireworks on Bastille Day. After the camp I spent two days in Luxemburg Capital, a beautiful city with lots of different places to explore.
On the first day I mostly walked and climbed around the parks, did some major sightseeing and visited a Jazz festival in the evening. Sadly, the weather was really bad on the second day so I tried to spend as much time as possible inside bookstores and photo galleries.
When I came back home I got ill for a while, ran some more and wrote way too many job applications. In the end I chose Hamburg as my next place to live and started looking for a room there which is always a nightmare. Hurray.
Emotion-wise I let myself be convinced that I should open up my heart again and that it’s fine to have feelings. If you want to know how that turned out please read on.

October/November/December: Treptow – Licht der Stadt
October was filled with many more job applications and way too much house hunting. In the end, I got offered a customer service position with a large online dating website and now moving to Hamburg turned from optional to obligatory. I finally managed to find a room in a shared flat just before the start of November and PLAY17, a creative gaming festival where I was supposed to help out. PLAY17 was one of the best experiences this year even though it was overshadowed by a range of unwanted advances. But, most importantly, I MET ANITA SARKEESIAN AND SHOOK HER HAND AND TALKED TO HER (and I didn’t faint one bit).
Again, I made so many awesome friends at the festival. It was fun to run the info counter as well because I got to meet lots of different people this way. To sum up, I hope every single one of you readers will come to PLAY18 and hug me there.
I spent the remaining weeks of November attempting to cure a particularly bad case of heartbreak with Bourbon, Stardew Valley and a depressive Spotify playlist I’m still quite proud of. I reached peak self-pity at a party where I broke down crying and threw up blood and after that I wasn’t feeling that much pain anymore but rather got very very angry, which is an emotion I had missed dearly.
But hey, there’s good news too. I used to suffer from chronic depressions which got extremely bad every year in November. But this year I was actually doing fine in spite of everything. So from now on it appears I only get depressed from too much stress and trauma like normal healthy people, yaaaay.
Sadly, my flatmate turned out to be a very special kind of creep who scared me so much that I only went to the flat for 4-5 hours to get some sleep (luckily I could lock the door to my room) and spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends or roaming around the city. This made the start at my new job particularly hard as I was really tired and a little starved during the first week. It also didn’t help that I got quite drunk every night in order to be able to sleep.
But I managed to move into another shared flat on the first weekend of December and everything was supposed to get better from now on.
Of course I got ill in the second half of December and my GP still doesn’t have a clue what I might have. Thus, I’ve been staying in bed with odd symptoms (and one new symptom added every other day! <3) for over a month now. It was exciting to have another little heartbreak on New Year’s Eve but that’s probably just me – giving 120% as always.

Having spent the first days of 2018 with my old friend norovirus I had plenty of time to work on my new year’s resolutions and since 2017 was so much better than 2016 I hope this trend will continue and 2018 will be even greater!

FUCKING AND PUNCHING – MY 2016

This was one hell of a year. And I’m not speaking of all those deaths and catastrophes people won’t stop referring to as symptoms of an artificially determined period of time. Yes, many people whose works influence me greatly have passed within the past 12 months. But it would take me several books to say goodbye to David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Carrie Fisher in an appropriate manner. Instead, let this text provide a glimpse into my own biography. A fucking shitload of shit fuck happened to me this year. And I hope I can somehow grow from this. Or get the chance to find a new beginning, which appears to be much more likely at this time.

Let’s start with January, February and March:

New boyfriend, new opportunities? Well, it was… new. And not in a good way. Imagine all the bad things a man could do to a woman and add to that the context of a relationship defined by religious and political controversies. Yes. That happened. All of it. Everything you just imagined. I went to a leadership seminar in Hesse at the end of March. Eight days of studying workcamp management, leadership styles, sustainability, peace strategies… Eight days with two dozen strangers from Germany, Russia and Ukraine. Eight days with limited Internet. Eight days without much contact with the outside world. The day I arrived back home I found the courage to break up with that fucker. We had good times too, though. Our trip to a concert in Munich was great. At least the moshpit was. Who does moshpits in front of Coheed and Cambria? Well, I did!

April, May and June were defined by my trying not to drown in uni work, attempting to create stuff, and fucking more guys than I could count. Lots of awesome kinky stuff happened and I’m happy to have found the courage to actually talk about and live out my fantasies. Of course there’s still a lot to learn and explore but it is so worth it to just accept who you are and tell yourself you deserve a fucking great time in bed (or wherever you prefer), too! Still, as already mentioned, other things didn’t work out so great. It was getting increasingly difficult to complete all the reading for my degree. At first I thought it must be another depressive episode. When I realised it didn’t feel like my usual depression I concluded I’ve simply reached my intellectual limit. People used to tell me I’m smart as fuck but maybe I could make it only so far. Maybe year three of an undergraduate degree is where I couldn’t succeed any longer. Maybe I had spent my whole life unknowingly pretending to be above average. Maybe this was it. That was the point where I started drinking too much on a regular basis.

I didn’t know I was seriously ill until my GP told me in August.

I deferred a module and still only scored a B at the end of the year. But at that point I was already to ill to care. Or to walk for more than ten minutes.

July, August and September were agony.

I wanted to focus on my projects, was about to lead a workcamp with a Berlin HIV prevention organisation and had been accepted to spend three weeks with wolves in Colorado in late September/early October. In the end I had to cancel everything because I was physically unable to leave the bed for more than two minutes without collapsing. Even sitting in a chair was too much for my body. Finally, my mum (bless her!) forced me to the GP who diagnosed serious anaemia. Two more weeks and I would have required a blood transfusion, she said. To answer the question you once had: yes, periods can kill! The side effects of the iron tablets I had to take for the following three months still kept me in bed for most of the time but at least I could play video games again and read a book or two. Oh, yeah, and Pokémon GO! happened at that time, right? Jeez.

October, November and December were dark and sleepless.

Uni started again. My iron levels are back to normal. I am now eating a special diet whenever my uterus refurbishes and am planning to have my copper IUD changed for a hormonal one in June 2017 (hopefully it won’t cause depressions). I went to see Radio Nukular 257901579015790 times or something. POAH! BENNY!

I spent two inspiring days at the creative gaming festival PLAY16 and realised I want to do something with video games for a living for a while.

One of my assignment marks was so bad that I dropped from a predicted 1^st to a 2:1. Thus, vet school is off the table. I started drinking again. I accidentally fell in love and fought the agony of its being unrequited with more alcohol.

ROGUE ONE.

About 2017…

Everybody says this but this is my first time and I actually mean it: this is going to be MY YEAR!

I’ll have my degree in June, as well as my driving licence and some money (hopefully). With my career plans being cancelled to some extent I will dare to feel free to travel and explore and get to know myself. Indeed, this sounds pretentious as fuck. But, who cares? I want it. I’m going to do it. For myself. Whenever I see my former classmates who never made it out of here and who just bought houses together with their spouse and children I almost choke from panic because I don’t want to end up where I started.

Oh, and here’s a list as well:

In 2017 I want to:

-finally get that tattoo

– get my old weight back

-finally run at least a half-marathon

-focus on one thing at a time

-improve my French and Spanish skills to fluency (I’m already so close!)

-stream on a regular basis

-practice playing the guitar more often

-focus on myself

-let go of pressuring thoughts

-look after my appearance more

-visit my friends in Lille and Brum

-learn to say no

-get a job that is legal and morally acceptable but still pays money

-find out what interpretive phenomenological analysis even means

ONE SINGLE UPDATE

Just a short update as to why this blog is always dying. This year I’m unbelievably busy trying not to fail my modules while battling numerous diseases and breakup pain. I actually had to go through two breakups within this academic year and better remain single for a while because, damn, every goodbye is painful in its own unique way. The only upside is that I’m finally getting my shit together. I found a desk under those huge paper piles in the corner, washed all of my clothes, made progress in Witcher 3, and started working on the project I’ve been thinking about for years (German speakers, or rather listeners, keep your eyes and ears open as something new will happen in June!). At times I fucking hate writing, yet often I cannot stop. So although I desperately try to keep this blog alive it will probably remain a welcome space for occasional text experiments, thoughts and your regular self-pity. Posts will most likely appear even less regular than now as my new project will take lots of time. But I am certain this will not be disappointing to read for you, my dear random Internet person, for you are the only soul who stumbled upon this blog. Congrats for that, have a biscuit and a smile, goodbye!

HANG IN THERE KITTY

Again, of course, it took me some time to come up with another blog post. There’s a lot going on in my life at the moment but most are not worthy of being written about. Even less so being read about. On the other hand I need to let off some steam somewhere and provide my self-pity with a decent place to be buried in.

Over the past few weeks I was often close to quitting or deferring modules, at times I even considered dropping out of my degree altogether. The only thing that kept (and is keeping) me going is the outlook on graduating next year and the prospect of dedicating the rest of my life to working with animals. University is hard, tedious, yet interesting and sometimes rewarding. I enjoy getting feedback for my work after spending so many years as an autodidact in a homeschooling programme after dropping out of school at the age of fifteen. I like receiving honest marks, and love the excitement and pride when I got another Distinction. The chances of me getting a First in the end look quite well and I cannot complain about my tutors.

Yet, I am sick of all this. I am sick of studying nothing but the psychology of humans all day and submitting assignments every other week when all I really want to do is work with animals for a living, preferably with equines or canines.

This is why I have decided to do a gap year before moving on to my MSc Animal Behaviour.

During that year I am planning to volunteer, travel and do internships in animal-related fields. Luckily the volunteering already starts this year as I got a place in an SCI work camp at the Mission: Wolf sanctuary in Colorado this autumn where an international group and I are going to support the residents with feeding and caring for the wolves, and cleaning out the area. Hopefully this will give me back some motivation so that the final year of my degree will not be as much of a struggle as this one. I am incredibly excited about the opportunity to camp in the wild for three weeks and spend every day with wolves. The first time I saw wolves was about seven years ago at a wildlife park in Kent and could not believe how smooth and quiet their movements were. Their presence humbled me. So this work camp will be a special and potentially life-changing experience. Mission: Wolf not only provides a safe space for rescued wolves but also aims to educate the public on wolves and wolf dogs. I am looking forward to practicing my note-taking on behavioural observations there and might even try to get a paper on the project published. This is how I motivate myself at the moment. My major project for my social psychology module is a phenomenological exploration of the experiences and identities of dog owners and the papers I am using for this can be potentially relevant for my observations at the wolf project. The other module is all about the scientific method and different research approaches so at least I get to use SPSS quite often and I really enjoy statistics. So, to conclude, not everything is quite as bad as I am believing at the moment and my finals are in less than 100 days. That’s why I will just keep telling myself to hang in there until it gets better. And it will get better. One day it will be fine.

CHANGES (THE AGE OF ILLUSION)

 

Even though the certainty of the presence often provides us with a sense of comfortable security we have to admit repeatedly that we were mistaken. By now I lost count of all the occasions at which I used or heard the term ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if you had told me last year that today…’. Yet I still believe in the stableness of my present existence. I could philosophise over the components of phenomenological analysis here but I’m required to do enough of that for my psychology degree. So let’s rather focus on the subjective experience here.

A lot happened in the last year. And the year before that. And the year… Well, you get the point. Academically, I went from no perspective to too many perspectives to ‘Holy fuck, I’m going to graduate from university next year!’. Emotionally, I went from miserable sod to lover to leaver to lover. Actually, I’m finally starting to accomplish that ‘sorting your life out’ thing. I overcame my fear of SSRIs and now the destructive cocktail of depression, anxiety and PTSD is not longer taking over and threatening my life. Although I do consider myself happy now and am enjoying the notion of having achieved peace of mind this does not mean that the journey was an easy one. A number of difficult decisions had to be made and not all of them seemed sensible to me at that time. But at times the most painful goodbyes will turn out as crucial waymarks in life that led to that eventual state of inner happiness we secretly agree upon as the true meaning of life. I used to believe that change is bad because it leads to bad things. I spent my childhood and teenage years changing schools, life goals, friends, and opportunities on a regular basis and the outcomes worsened with every step. It took a long time to escape this cycle and to accept that ‘deserving’ is only a construct of the human mind and not a naturally occurring component of the circle of life. After rejecting the concept of revenge I came to realise that it is just as wrong to claim that somebody deserves something good happening to themselves. Occurrences during the life-course of an individual’s existence do not follow an invisible set of rules. Things just happen. Not for a reason but for the sole purpose of occurring. In short, life is not (and has never been) fair. After this realisation suffering becomes bearable and happiness intensifies as it is no longer perceived as ‘undeserved’. At this point the individual discovers a never known before courage to change in themselves. Maybe this concept is as much of an illusion as the construct I decided to reject but at this point I prefer a healthy dose of consequentialism as peace of mind outweighs a life defined by blame and judgement by far. This means, after all, the only things that count are the ones that make you happy in the end.

Things that made me happy this month:

Looking for Alaska by John Greene

The new LP of The Last Shadow Puppets

David Bowie Is

My guitar

My dog

Radio Nukular tickets

Going to Munich to see Coheed and Cambria with my boyfriend