by Holly Bourne
“I know. How was it anyway?”
“I’m not allowed to talk to you about it, you’re too impressionable.” I ruffled her hair with a cushion and Rose “oi”ed and batted me off.
“Anxiety isn’t chlamydia.”
“You, missy, are far too young to know about chlamydia.”
“I’m twelve. I have internet access. And boys at school who accuse each other of having it.”
“I’m scared for your generation.”
“Everyone’s always scared for someone else’s generation.”
“You are far too wise, little one. Far too wise.”
She was, Rose. Wise, I mean. I never really believed in the wise little sister thing – thought it was just a narrative device in indie films. Then Rose grew up and started spewing out wiseness like it was bogeys in cold season.
“I’d better go make peace with Mum.” I stood up and stretched.
“Why? You’ve not done anything wrong.”
“Ahh, dear Rose. But an easy life. Anything for an easy life. Plus you know how much she worries.”
The smell of spag Bol, slightly burned, wafted up my nostrils as I entered the kitchen. “Mmm, smells great.”
Mum frantically stirred a pan and didn’t turn around. “Evie, do you mind boiling the kettle for the pasta? Oh God, the sauce is too thick. How do I make it less thick?”
I steered past her to grab the kettle. “Just add more water and keep the lid on.”
She did as I said, but all clanging and banging with the pan. My stomach turned. Having Mum cook always made me stressed. She got in such a state about it, like every meal was as important as Christmas dinner. It was so much easier when we just heated up fish fingers.
“Dad’s home from work early,” I said.
“Yes…yes…” she muttered, now lifting up the lid to peer at the sauce with genuine fear. “So, how was your appointment then?”
“Okay. The usual.” I flicked the kettle on to boil.
“Did Sarah give you any homework I should know about?”
I shrugged, even though she wasn’t looking at me to see it.
“Just the usual. Don’t go mad again.”
She whipped round and a bit of sauce flew up and splattered her apron. I didn’t tell her.
“Don’t talk like that when Rose is around.”
“What? She’s watching TV. And she knows what’s going on!”
“Yes but still…she’s very young, Evie. It’s best not to…you know…make her more aware of it?”
“OCD isn’t chlamydia,” I said, copying Rose. “It’s not like she’s going to catch it off me.” Though there was some research to suggest OCD could be triggered by learned behaviours. They asked about my mum a lot when I went through psychotherapy on the ward…
She bashed the pan down, splattering more sauce. “Evie, that’s disgusting! I’m just saying, we don’t have to rub it in Rose’s face now, do we?”
I took a deep breath, knowing arguing only made her worse. Then she’d start crying, or blaming herself, or overcompensating for the guilt by following me around the house like a prison inspector, making sure I was following Sarah’s homework to the T.
“Can I help any more with dinner?” I asked, offering it like a peace pipe.
Mum pushed some hair back from her face. I tried not to think about the hair getting into the spag Bol. I failed.
“Do you want to help with dinner?”
“Yes, Mother. That is why I asked.” Another deep breath.
“All right then, can you lay the table too?”
I dutifully got out all the relevant cutlery and only released my big sigh once I was in the dining room. My mum – oh the issues. I know saying you’ve got issues with your parents is about as groundbreaking as saying “Hey, I have to poo most days”, or “You know what? Sometimes I get bored” but that doesn’t make the issues any less true. Oh, I love her. Of course I love her. And she’s a good person. I’d even go as far as to say she’s a great mother – until it comes to my “mental health problems” – then she’s…well…how exactly do I put this…?
… She’s a nightmare.
Okay, well, both she and Dad are, but she’s worse. Like, I’m sure it was very traumatic and all, to have me go just so very mad. But they’re so…scared of me now, that I feel almost like a shared science project between them – the “Let’s-never-let-this-happen-again” project. To be fair, in one of our family therapy sessions, the CBT lady at the unit told them they had to be “strict” with me, “for my own good”. Because us OCDers can be quite the manipulative bunch, getting everyone all worried about us, convincing them our fears are totally valid, becoming puppeteers of everyone around us, emotionally guilt-tripping them into behaving how we want them to so we don’t freak out and ruin the day. Mum and Dad were told not to “indulge” my worries. I just wish they hadn’t taken to it so enthusiastically. I know it sounds stupid, but it feels like they’re being mean. Like they’re against me. And it doesn’t help that Mum keeps twitching about Rose – worrying I’m going to break the only perfectly-functioning offspring she has left.
We ate dinner. It tasted of burnt. Yet we all pretended it was yummy because Mum kept asking, “Is it okay? Is the sauce too thick? It’s too thick, isn’t it?” while Dad drank a bit too much wine. Once I’d finished, I carried my plate to the sink then went up to my room. Washing up was something I hadn’t quite conquered yet and Mum, thankfully, didn’t force the issue if I helped cook or lay the table. I just couldn’t stand washing up. The fact that all the bits of food come off the plate into the bowl and float about, waiting to attach themselves to the next thing you put in there to be washed? How did that clean anything? And don’t get me started on the number of germs in every kitchen sink. Honestly, you’d rather lick a toilet if you knew.
I sat at my desk and mucked about on my Casablanca essay for a bit, but I couldn’t focus. Sarah’s appointment was bothering me.
Why couldn’t I tell Amber and Lottie about my issues? What was I really scared of? Surely they wouldn’t dump me? As long as I stayed normal enough not to piss them off…
Yet I just knew I couldn’t. Mainly because they seemed to like who I was and I didn’t want to tarnish the illusion. And also, well, what if I told them and they reacted in one of the ways I hated?
What really pisses me off about people and mental health problems
I don’t really “get” angry. If I’m going to be emotional, I do sad. Crying. Not swearing and yelling and punching walls.
Apart from about this.
Sarah once told me about the “dark ages” of public awareness, where people didn’t really know much about mental health problems. And what they did know was mostly wrong. There was loads of MISINFORMATION and STIGMA and it was really terrible and everyone suffered in silence for ages, not knowing what was wrong, and not seeking help because they didn’t understand what their brain was doing to them and why.
But then we decided we needed to CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK about mental illness. Huge awareness campaigns were set up. A few soaps gave their characters depression and whatnot, following each episode with a voiceover saying, “If you’ve been upset by anything seen on this programme, go to this website and yadda yadda yadda.” Slowly, but surely, mental health eked its way into the public consciousness. People began to learn the names of conditions. People began to understand the symptoms. People began to say the oh-so-important phrase “it’s not their fault”. There was SYMPATHY and UNDERSTANDING. Even some politicians and celebs came out, as it were, and told national newspapers about their own suicide attempts or whatever.
We couldn’t stop there, could we?
I can say, with some confidence, that it’s gone too far the other way. Because now mental health disorders have gone “mainstream”. And for all the good it’s brought people like me who have been given therapy and stuff, there’s a lot of bad it’s brought too.
Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe
minor personality quirks. “Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.”
NO YOU’RE FUCKING NOT.
“Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.”
NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T.
“I’m so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar.”
SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.
Told you I got angry.
These words – words like OCD and bipolar – are not words to use lightly. And yet now they’re everywhere. There are TV programmes that actually pun on them. People smile and use them, proud of themselves for learning them, like they should get a sticker or something. Not realizing that if those words are said to you by a medical health professional, as a diagnosis of something you’ll probably have for ever, they’re words you don’t appreciate being misused every single day by someone who likes to keep their house quite clean.
People actually die of bipolar, you know? They jump in front of trains and tip down bottles of paracetamol and leave letters behind to their devastated families because their bullying brains just won’t let them be for five minutes and they can’t bear to live with that any more.
People also die of cancer.
You don’t hear people going around saying: “Oh my God, my headache is so, like, tumoury today.”
Yet it’s apparently okay to make light of the language of people’s internal hell. And it makes me hate people because I really don’t think they get it.
“Oh, you have OCD. That’s the thing where you like to wash your hands a lot, right?”
It annoys me that I’ve got the most clichéd “version” of OCD. The stereotypical one. But it’s not like I chose it. And, yes, I do like to wash my hands a lot. Or did. Well, I still want to, every second of the day, but I don’t. But I also lost two stone because I refused to eat anything in case it contaminated me and I died. And I have a brain on a permanent loop of bad thoughts that I cannot escape so I’m technically imprisoned in my own mind. And I once didn’t leave the house for eight weeks.
That is not just liking to wash your hands.
No, you don’t have OCD too.
If you had OCD, you wouldn’t tell people about it.
Because, quite simply, despite all this good work, some people Still. Don’t. Get. It.
Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole. They make you selfish. They make you irrational. They make you self-absorbed. They make you needy. They make you cancel plans last minute. They make you not very fun to spend time with. They make you exhausting to be near.
And just because people know the right words now, doesn’t mean they’re any better at putting up with the behaviour. They smile and nod and say, “Oh, how awful, yes I watched a programme about that, you poor thing”… And then they get really pissed off at you when you have a panic attack at a party and need to leave early. When they actually have to demonstrate understanding, they bring out the old favourites like “come on, try harder” or “it’s not that bad” or “but that isn’t logical” – undoing all the original hand-patting and there-there-ing.
That’s why I can’t tell Lottie and Amber. That’s why I have to hold it in.
Because if any more people don’t get it… Don’t get me… Then I don’t think I’ll be able to take it.
Ten
Lottie stared at herself dreamily in the mirror and straightened a section of her hair.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, in a bedtime story voice. “I always dreamed of growing up and going to a metal gig held in a church hall.”
Amber and I giggled.
“Church halls are totally rock ’n’ roll now,” I told her. “It’s like, ironic or something…well, that’s what Jane said.”
“Or…in translation…Jane’s boyfriend’s band can’t get a gig in a real venue?” Amber suggested.
I giggled again, wonking up my perfect eyeliner cat flick in the process. Sighing, I reached for a tissue. Joel’s band was headlining a gig tonight. In a local church hall. It was all Jane had been talking about. And, dutifully, I’d agreed to go to it. With Amber and Lottie as backup, of course. Amber had provided her house as getting-ready headquarters.
“Let me get this straight,” Lottie said, shoving another clump of hair between her GHDs. “Jane asked you to go with her, and yet is now meeting you there?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She said Joel needed her to help set up or something.”
“Do you remember when you were a little kid and your mum used to say, ‘And if so-and-so asked you to jump off a cliff, would you’?”
“If Joel asked Jane to jump off a cliff she’d be vaporized already,” Amber said, waiting patiently for her turn in front of the mirror.
“Yeah. Seagulls would be eating her brain,” said Lottie.
I didn’t join in the laughter this time.
“Come on,” I said half-heartedly, “she’s not that bad.”
My friendship with Jane was the continuing subject of minor conflict in my blossoming relationship with the girls. Quite simply, they didn’t like her. They found her devout worship of Joel scornful. Plus, as decent mates, they didn’t appreciate how much she blew me out. Though I agreed with pretty much everything they said, I couldn’t join in with the bitching. Despite everything, I still felt I owed her…
“What’s going on with you and this bloke, Oli, then?” Amber asked, spritzing some vanilla perfume onto her wrists and rubbing them together. I’d told them about his cheekbones…and him of course.
I pulled a face. “Still the same. He’s so shy. Which is good, because Ethan wasn’t shy and look what happened there. But it’s, like, impossible to get him to chat about much. And he’s not in college very much. He misses loads of lessons.”
“Really? Why?”
“I dunno. Colds, I guess. It’s that germy time of year, isn’t it?” Like I didn’t know…
After another half-hour of preening, we were ready. None of us knew what to wear to a gig in a church hall so we all chose a little bit of black. Lottie had ironed her hair into harsh vertical lines but softened it with a demure black top. Amber, trying to make herself smaller, wore a black strapless top and black jeans. And I was wearing a black tea dress covered in polka dots. If you squinted, we looked like a gaggle of witches.
We bumped into Amber’s demonic little brother on the stairs on our way out.
He took one look at his sister.
“You look like a boy,” he yelled at Amber, a cheeky yet evil grin on his face.
Amber bristled. “At least I’m not adopted.”
His nasty face dropped and went red. “I’M NOT ADOPTED, YOU TAKE THAT BACK.”
“You’ll just have to talk it through with your mum and dad.” Amber pushed past him, dragging us with her, and slammed the door shut.
She didn’t talk for a bit when we got outside – all of us pretending it wasn’t that cold, and it wasn’t that awkward.
Lottie broke the ice by producing a bottle of cherry Lambrini from her bag.
“Seriously?” was all I had to say about that.
“Aww, come on, we’re going to a gig. In a church. Cheap shite alcohol is needed.”
She untwisted the top of the bottle – always the start of a classy night – and took a slug. “Mmm,” she said. “Tastes like wrong.” She handed the bottle over to me and I took a delicate sip.
“MORE,” Lottie demanded. I sipped again. “MORE.”
“Jeez – peer pressure much?” I handed the bottle to Amber, thinking now wasn’t the time to tell them I wasn’t supposed to drink much because I was on brain-altering medication.
Amber wrapped her coat round herself about ten times, as if trying to erase who she was. She grabbed the pink bottle and chugged half of it, before wiping her mouth and announcing, “My little brother is such a cock.”
“Families suck,” I said, thinking of my mum. “And he’ll always wonder if he’s adopted now. It was the ultimate comeback, Amber.”
She put her arms around us and brought us in for a girly hug – always tricky with boobs in the way. “What would I do without you guys?”
I knew how she felt.
The church hall was rammed, like Midnight Mass, but with more eyeliner and pierced lips. We even had to queue to get in, which was pretty funny as everyone else there was about thirteen so we towered above them.
“So what’s the name of their band again?” Lottie asked in the line.
“Erm…Bone Road? They used to be called Road of Pain, but it was patented by some guys in America.”
Lottie’s face creased up as she struggled not to take the piss. “And Bone Road means?”
“Er…” I tried to remember Jane’s explanation. “Something to do with capitalism is killing us all slowly, and soon all that will be left of our souls is a road of bones?”
That seemed about right.
The crowd surged and Amber, who’d got split from us in the queue, rode the wave crest of people back over to us, like King Poseidon or something. I had at least twelve pairs of elbows jabbing into my body and kept trying to twist away from them. If a church hall event was this crowded on a Saturday night, there was something seriously wrong with this town. We definitely needed a Nando’s.
“But souls don’t have bones,” she objected.
“Jane said that’s the point.”
“The point of what?”
“The name. It’s existential, apparently.”
Lottie sighed. “There better be a bar.”
Using our fully-matured elbows, we barged to the front, paid our three quid, got our hands stamped and bought some drinks from the makeshift bar. A warm-up band was already playing in the hall on a dusty stage. A crowd stood below the stage, half-listening to the screaming…sorry…I mean music. The hall ceiling was so high that – even with the huge turnout – it felt they were playing to nobody. A pink helium balloon stuck in the rafters, emblazoned with “Happy 5th Birthday” did nothing to improve the rock ’n’ roll feel.
Jane appeared – wearing a mini dress so revealing I could see the frilly edge of her pants. “You guys! You made it! They’ve had to stop letting people in, isn’t that amazing? Fire hazard.”
