It’s 4:12am on Friday morning, and it is absolutely freezing outside. Google says the temperature is 10 degrees, but it feels colder. I’m propped up here in bed with my electric blanket on 9 and the heater on, although it doesn’t cover much of my room. But I don’t care; I’m nice and warm.
I actually just got home a little earlier; I’ve been at my friend Rebecca’s. I think I’ve mentioned that Rebecca has schizoaffective disorder, and she works as a peer worker. She took this week off because she had an admission to the Royal Adelaide Hospital last weekend. They sent her home and have been sending “Hospital at Home” to her place every day, so she took some more leave without pay.
She takes a lot of leave because of her illness, but her work doesn’t seem to mind. I guess because the nature of her employment is connected to her mental illness, they can’t really complain too much about the symptoms of it.
Because she’s off work, she can stay up late, which works for me because it’s nice to be around people during the graveyard shift. I got to Rebecca’s at about twelve. I brought my laptop and did some reading on it while she looked online at mental illness websites and then watched a couple of episodes of Home and Away.
She’s the sort of person who thinks she knows better than her doctors, won’t listen to advice, and is constantly having hospital admissions to the Emergency Department. She complains a lot about her life and her lot in life. I was listening to her tonight talking about a friend of hers who also complains a lot and is really negative. She went on about how much she hated it, and I was just thinking: take a look in the goddamn mirror.
The root of her mental illness lies in childhood trauma, but I have to say, a lot of people have had varying types of trauma and abuse, and there has to come a point in your life where you say, you know what, I am going to find a way to live with this and get on with the job. There just has to come a time when this happens, or she is going to spend the rest of her life in and out of the public health system.
And it will be the public health system, because her last private psychiatrist discharged her from his care, which was actually a little bit unfair. She has a reputation around the Adelaide Clinic as being difficult and requiring a lot of care, and none of the consulting psychiatrists will take her on. So she’s stuck with the public health system.
I don’t have a lot of close friends because I’m very guarded, and I like to stick to myself. That’s not true; I would like to meet some new people, and I’m not shy, but I don’t trust people.
The reason I said that is because I guess I should be grateful to have Rebecca as my friend — I don’t have many, and she is Nanny’s real granddaughter, so I should be looking after her. But I was just sitting there at her house tonight, watching Home and Away at 2:00am, listening to her talk about it like it was real life. And I mean placing significant importance on events in Summer Bay, and I was thinking: there has to be more to life than this. There just has to be.
I like collating names and addresses for my oath projects. I find it fulfilling and satisfying. Although I went to the PO Box tonight to check for any mail and there still wasn’t anything, no news is good news, I say! I feel like they might start coming in any time now.
Anyway, to get back to my point, I’m not sure it’s good to have such negative people in your life. I really feel I’ve outgrown her. I’ve talked to Mum about it, and she says we’ve been friends for so long that it would be a real shame to lose the friendship, but she agrees I need to distance myself from her based on who she is as a person.
I know she’s got schizoaffective disorder, but sometimes I think she also has borderline personality disorder as a comorbidity. I’m not saying that people with BPD are all bad — I’m sure they’re not — but the type I think she’s got isn’t overly appealing for friendship’s sake.
Prior to going to Rebecca’s tonight, I went to my happy place! This was before twelve, so I guess that makes it yesterday. It all feels like the same big day sometimes. My happy place is my hairdressing salon. I used to go there once a week for a blow dry, which really is a bit of an extravagance for someone in my financial position — not destitute, but also not swimming in pools of cash. And it’s because of this that I decided not to go there so often.
I thought I’d pop in every now and then and get a colour or a blow dry, but after I hadn’t been for the first week, my hairdresser called me and left a message asking where I’d been and if I was okay. I called back and left a message saying everything was fine and that I had just been busy. Then I didn’t go for another three weeks. When I went again yesterday, they made a real thing of it. They were saying how much they’d missed me and were telling other clients that I was their favourite and how interesting I am. I blush to write this, but I feel it’s all part of their marketing tactics.
Because they were so nice, it makes me want to go back regularly — I do enjoy chatting with them — but I really can’t afford it. It’s time to take responsibility for myself and my money and do my hair myself. If I take this approach, I could go to the salon a couple of times a year for a trim and do my colour and blow dries at home. Anyone can colour their own hair, and the price difference is huge. To give you an idea: a colour, cut, and blow dry at the salon can be up to $300, while a box of colour from the chemist is around $20. The grey coverage when you do it yourself isn’t always as good, but there are sprays and things you can use to create the illusion of no greys.
Not only did I start a hairdressing apprenticeship myself about 26 years ago, but I’ve also been going to salons regularly for most of my adult life, so I’ve learned a thing or two about doing my own hair.
