Again there was that familiar feeling. Your never alone in bed when you feel like shit. Its like some strange ghost of bizarre thinking just cannot get enough of you.



"Ease off a bit" I should have said "Im not looking for a relationship"

Yet it stayed. Depression is fucking stalker material.

I was numbed with anxiety as I lay on my bed. In the heat. With lizards scouring the walls for insects, I crumbled apart....silently....for no good reason

Get me the fuck out of Bundaberg, I thought.

Everything I did was filtered through this new state of mind. My MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER - my new hideous boyfriend - liked me too much to accept my rejection.

To occupy my mind I went to the computer. I looked at photos of myself.

JUST AWFUL. At that moment I was short, stocky, almost fat - not horribly ugly but goofy looking - unspectacular - forgettable. As boring as Bundaberg.

I had to get out. I pictured myself hanging from the back of my door.

I wanted to die

U cant make your opponent love you, I wasnt even sure what the game was or if it was worth winning.





*





The dark mood consumed me for a couple of days. I cut myself, stared at photos of myself, thought about death and boys and spent hours in front of the mirror doing weird stuff with my hair. I started fights with everyone in the house and threatened to kill the pet Kangaroo.





My company was intolerable.





It needed to stop. This fucked-up feeling. The prickly little echidna that had made its way into chest - bursting my fragile emotional poofy little balloons.





"Mum can we go for a drive, I need to talk to you"



She got dressed and we drove to the Yandaran Pub.



Yandaran Pub was known for curing existential ills. Im SOOOO glad Mum chose that location.



"Are you trying to get away from Geoff?" she asked



"No Ive been feeling off colour?"



"Still withdrawing from the drugs"


Yes, Mum its self-imposed and of course mental state is all a matter of willpower.



"Actually no, mentally Ive been off colour"



"Have you taken your tablets?"



Fuck off Mum, just because your no longer an angry bitch courtesy of Cipramil doesnt mean we all want to sell our souls to anti-depressants.



"No, Ive taken all my medication this week"



"Okay, well then whats wrong?"



"Im not sure, I just feel bad"



We drove silently for about 2 minutes.



I went on "I feel....lonely"



"Well thats just something your going to have get used to up here"



She was really ticking me off. If only my problem was as simple as missing a tablet. Have a headache, take a panadol - have suicidal tendencies, take a pill if that doesnt work just get over it.



I wanted to screech at her, I felt like demanding that she stop the car and let me walk. I'd hitch to Bundaberg and catch the next train out of here. Fuck u and Fuck Yandaran fucking pub, u cunt.



But I didnt I sat there in silence. We drank at Yandaran pub amongst an assortment of polite young country folk and bearded alcoholics who would be better off dead. We drove back. It was a useless exercise, a feeling of total helplessness washed over me.



Mum tried better on the way back.



"So when did you start to feel bad recently?" she asked.



I knew exactly when and it was embarrassing.



"Ummm. I was going really well until I met Keegan and then for some weird reason I felt terrible"

"Ok, terrible in what way?"

"I just felt really bad, its hard to describe"

"Why do you think you felt terrible?"

I hesistated, it hurt to say it.

"Cause I dont think he likes me"

"He invited you over to his house Luke"

"Yeah but Im the one doing all the chasing"

"Have you heard from him?"

"He messages me, only when I message him first. If he doesnt like me then thats it, Im stuck in Bundaberg and I dont have anyone. If I was in Brisbane it would be different. I could just go out and find someone else the next night, but I cant"

"Y'know you can go to Brisbane if you really want. I cant stop you. Im just concerned that your getting yourself in more debt"

"Mum this is not an attempt to manipulate you so I can get my own way"

"Im not saying that, Im just saying if you want to go to Brisbane you can"

Silence. We drove through the dark roads and Mum deliberately ran over the cane toads.

You could hear them splat under the tyre, Mum went on.

"The reality is Luke that not everyone is going to like everyone. Its just the way it goes"

"I know that in my head"

"It sounds like maybe you have a problem with rejection"

"Maybe"

"Its an awful, awful feeling when you think somebody doesnt love you and you want them to"

"Yeah it is"

"Ive had a big problem with rejection all my life. I actually went and saw a psychologist about it when I was living in Victoria. Once I found out that so many of my bad feelings were to do with my fear of rejection then i kind of started to get on top of it. Its about working out why you feel that way I think"

"Why did you feel that way?"

Mum took a deep breath.

"There were a couple of things. My first boyfriend when I was a teenager I loved him and we stayed together for four years. Then Ken, my first marriage, he left me. And then with my Dad when he met his second wife he just really didnt want to have much to do with me. All that was hard and made me really scared of people not loving me"

I looked at Mum. She had put herself on the line emotionally to help me feel better. To help me work it out. I looked at her acne-scarred cheeks. I thought about her alcoholic, violent father and the fact she had my Sister when she was just 16. The vulnerability of everyone when it comes to love dawn on me delicately in that moment.

"Do you have any idea why you might have an issue with rejection?" she asked.

I thought of Shea in grade 5, the popular girl who wouldnt go out with me. I thought about Katie in year 8, a girl who wouldnt go out with me....so I told everyone she was a lesbian and she had to leave school. All I wanted was a pretty, bitchy popular girl to date and it never happened. I was short, a late-bloomer, freckled with bucked teeth and glasses from grade 5 to year 9. It was an awful period. Once a girl came right up to my face and said "you ugly" and ran off laughing. I'd gone from cute, blonde hair, blue eyed child to monstrous teenager and I suffered for it. I didnt want to go into this right now, I knew it would hurt too much.

"Yeah a couple of things" I said and I left it at that.

I felt better though. My neediness wasnt because I was ugly or unlovable, its because I hadnt delt with my shadow. It hurt so much because each relationship, each fling, each rejection picked at the scab of that ugly fucking scar, when I looked at it...it could be mistaken for a lesion.