*WARNING*

*this contains
TOO MUCH INFORMATION
so if you are of a delicate disposition
(it's OK folks, dave will be out of the library by now)
(anyone else, don't say I didn't warn you!)
please click off
and go look somewhere else instead*
.

.
(I mean that in the nicest possible way)

so, for the last month I have had a HUGE fear of razor blades and kitchen knives

the latter I have not overcome (so I'm buying ready-made salads and ready-prepared fruit salads at the moment) and the former I have just overcome. . .

now, see, I don't do "relaxing in the tub" and I envy people who can

I sit in a bath while it fills up, wash my hair, cover my hair in conditioner (not the roots, cos a hairdresser once told me that was the fastest way to lank locks that I girl could go) (the best advice I ever had from a hairdresser, I have to say) and then wash, and then when the bath is full I pull the plug out and turn on the shower (or lie backwards and stick my head under the tap) and rinse the conditioner out

then I get out, rinse the bath and dry off

*

when I was in the Head Clinic, I used to sit in these two places (my 50%+ place, and the 50%- one) and eventually, after a two or three or four weeks, a whole bunch of people just used to come and sit next to me wherever I was, whatever I was doing (thinking, smoking, sketching) and talk to me

I never used to talk to anyone, until the last week when I made a lovely friend, altho I did have a couple of conversations with a nurse whose job it was to take me to lunch and make sure I ate something (well, I figure that that was what he was being paid to do, anywhichway)

the nursing staff said it was good that people talked to me, cos it showed I was "approachable", I just used to think I wished there was someone I could talk to. . .

. . .people who heard voices-telling-them-to-do-things talked to me, cocaine addicts talked to me, alcoholics talked to me, other depressed/suicidal people talked to me, bipolar people talked to me, people who had not uttered one word to anyone else talked to me. . .

(I didn't talk to the last-week-friend about head stuff, only life stuff)

one girl/woman (cripes, she was probably my age, which makes her middle aged - YIKES - altho my mother died at 55, so I'm well into my old age now, if I share the same genes) used to come and sit next to me and cry and mutter about how her body hurt and her insides hurt and her head hurt and how she just wanted it to end and just wanted to be dead; I could relate to aspects of that - but in my experience empathy is near enough worthless when one is feeling that low; I used to lend her my cardi in the early morning when it was chilly; she had had some kind of really really bad toxic reaction to coming off her medication - they call it "Discontinuation Syndrome" now, altho it used to be known as "withdrawal effects"; sometimes I would stroke her shoulder, carefully - very carefully, cos even to touch her gently hurt her, but I wanted her to understand I had heard what she said even tho there was NOTHING I could do (sometimes that is all it takes - for someone to listen, even tho they can't DO anything). . .

I asked her one morning about if she ever felt OK - and she said yes, when she had a bath or a shower and washed her hair - the warm water helped

I suggested she take a bath or a shower three or even four times a day

it seemed obvious to me

she looked at me very quizzically

so, I've just taken a splash from the narrow spectrum of my own advice - I had a bath

but I broke the habit of a lifetime and made it a long one: before I turned on the faucet, I Immac-ed (AKA Veet®) my bikini-line into non existence; while the bath was filling, I waxed my legs from top to bottom; plucked my eyebrows and any stray hairs that are where hairs shouldn't be (*frowns*); I got in when the tub was almost full to overflowing and lay back and soaked; I lathered and washed my hair; rinsed, folded the conditioner in; I scrubbed my feet and inbetween my toes, and the soles of my feet, and my ankles with some gritty stuff that smelt nice; I shaved under my arms (that was the tricky bit); exfoliated my back and tummy and in between my breasts and across to my shoulders and down each arm and round to the back of my neck to my hair line and back around again to the front under my chin; I don't do fancy facial stuff - just use plain old water and a clean flannel, so I did that. . .

the water was quite bubbly and soapy, but not grubby (I haven't done anything recently, so I'm not very dirty) (in fact, dear reader, you'll be pleased to know, I'm not dirty at all!) (where's vicus when you need him?), so I just lay back and relaxed for a bit; then I pulled out the plug and rinsed my hair thru and all the bubbles off; got out, rinsed the bath itself; cleaned my ears with those cotton twiddly things (I needed three). . .

and now I'm sitting here drying off, wrapped in towels, with all the wraparound-glass-door-window-things pulled back wide open, The Penguin Cafe Orchestra serenading me and a gentle breeze blowing in and out

*

the scars on my left wrist and the back of my left hand and my arm and the inside of my elbow are criss-crossed and red and either lumpy or deep and jaggedy and perforated with stitch marks and dry (I need to moisturise them, apparently) - the wounds have healed, the scars remain: a reminder of what happens when you are sad and angry with yourself and unable to ask anyone for help; I'm learning. . .
.

*

razor blades are best used to keeping your underarms from looking like a bush, or - if you're a bloke - shaving patterns into the growth on your face/chin. . .