Dreams
The loss of The Nervous Breakdown Manual is extremely upsetting. Over the past five months it has been a therapeutical tool with which I have tried to understand what happened in the 3½ years between April 2001 and the end of 2004. I have tried to reconstruct events of which I have only a limited memory but which were life-changing (and not for the better). Only by following up these events will I be able to accept the consequences in the long term. The NBM has helped me to deal with the on-going repercussions—until now, when they may reach their final conclusion or open up another avenue of lost fights and bitter disappointment.
The NBM was a place where I could follow up news stories , review papers and uncover bits of evidence that what happened to me is not unique and neither are the reactions of certain health services and the drug indistry.
It was a place where I could recount my dreams.
At a time like this, being able to talk about your dreams and nightmares is particularly important. Having been through psychological trauma, I recognize the importance of monitoring moods and emotions at all times. In the absence of the NBM, I will have to talk about them here because just writing these things down is not sufficient to process them. Not that you need to comment about any of this, in fact it is better if you don’t. I know this has nothing to do with travel, but if I take off on an indefinite trip in the near future, you’ll know the reasons why. If I don’t, you’ll also know why. I try to keep this brief.
Last night I dreamt of lost files, a group of people in an office, strawberries and champagne and a lawyer with a twinkle in his eyes.
I was at the office wearing my suit, like for a job interview or for my first court appearance, or even like visiting a conference (I’m doing too much reading about Worldcon at the moment, not that it is a place for suits—except space suits). I came to the office to sign forms that had been downloaded and retrieve print-outs of files that had been lost during the Blogger upset. I came more often than I should have. On my final visit (unnecessary because the Blogger mess had been fixed, as I hope it will in the real world) I gate-crashed a party. The lawyer with the twinkle was at the centre of it, he had won another case. He did not mind that I was there. It made me feel good. When they posed for press photos, I retreated to a sideroom, reading the New Scientist until all the guests left. I sheepishly apologised for overstaying my welcome but the lawyer had left too, leaving my former boss behind who asked me to help with the clear-up.
The indications are that I am putting too much hope into all this. I won’t get my former life back and I thought I decided that that was a good idea. Clearly the issue is unresolved. If I had not written this down, it would have escaped me. Good things, dreams.
The twinkly lawyer is not a father figure or a knight in shining armour. He is doing a job. He has not taken on my case yet. He won’t if he thinks he cannot win (and I derive comfort from that). It is good to have him on my side, but it won’t be pretty. If he takes it on, mine will be the test case for the whole of Scotland where class actions (against the drug manufacturer) can’t be brought. I’m due in Glasgow for a psychiatric assessment. If I’m lucky, I can combine it with going to Worldcon.
Strangely, John wasn’t in that dream. Without him, I wouldn’t do anything. I’d be in jail.
Anyway this was the dream, triggered by too much typing, watching Big Brother housemates consume strawberries and champagne in the garden and receiving an arranged phone call yesterday morning. John answered because I am terrible on the phone. TL said that was fine, but he would have to ask for my consent first, so John handed the receiver to me and I talked to TL for ten minutes. It wasn’t scary at all. Now I have to sift through a fat folder of photocopies and write a letter. It isn’t fun; in fact nothing else gets me to work on my stories despite on-going writer’s block or cook a complicated dish with pig’s intestines instead, which I have put off until today. But it has to be done. —Back to the office.
Tags: Neither here nor there, Tag Index
Denni