I suppose I wasn't so lucky. M decided not to join me since he's on a shit load of risperidone and lithium and didn't want to risk another psychotic break, so I took it all on my lonesome. Probably a good thing, since I needed someone to interrupt me when I became fascinated with skulls on the pavement and decided to experience a cat's eye view of the world by slinking around ninja-stylee with my nose to the floor. It was nowhere near as intense as I'd expected, however. After an hour of little more exciting than shifting colours and floating 3D bubbles as I lay flat on my back staring into the ceiling lights, I decided to take another tab. Still nothing much. Except I felt stoned, and my stomach started to hurt. A lot. I also had a go at my boyfriend for the "misogynistic" music that was blasting (okay, playing quietly) out of his speakers, and informed him that I knew the real reason he wanted to take me to Poland this summer was to fatten me up and feed me to his family there.
At ten o'clock I decided I wanted to go out. At least, I thought I did, but changing my clothes and applying makeup proved to be an ordeal and a half. All my imperfections were magnified, though I felt at once outside of and hopelessly trapped inside my body. It was like dressing an ugly misshapen mannequin. Our plan was to go to a sushi restaurant and then onto a club in Covent Garden, and as we walked out of the house my legs (which I'm usually relatively okay with) became tree trunks and my skin looked decrepit and old. M informed me that I was hungry and that my stomach would stop hurting once it had some food in it - I had explained to him that he had to tell me what I was feeling, since he knew and I had no idea.
We ordered sushi and sake, which I ate though I had no appetite. My stomach still hurt and a muted nausea ambushed me in waves. Then we headed out. I did a lot of thinking on the tube. Since dropping the acid my thoughts had hardly stopped, and it wasn't altogether enjoyable. It wasn't at all that I was immersed in them, I was very aware that they were products of my own mind which I accused myself of conjuring to torment myself with, over-intellectualising being a curse of mine at the best of times. Silhouettes of kissing faces morphing into different shapes and ages swam out of the seat in front of me, much like the body suits in A Scanner Darkly which we'd seen the night before. Looking down at my scaly, aging skin I had a sudden realisation that I was living myself to death - the smoking, the worrying, the anxiety, the anorexia, the vomiting, the carving my arms to shit. The last three don't perhaps apply at present (I am a healthy weight now, haven't made myself sick for 30 days and counting and have cut once in the past three months) but this did not prevent me from berating myself for past sins.
Then I had an alternative vision, one of complete health. My mother appeared in this image, gleefully caressing my plump white, slippery body, owning me as she might have in the womb. This of course was no less horrifying. It came to me that all I have done to myself, all the stripping down and the scarifying was a futile attempt to escape this other, consuming kind of death. Death lay at the end of both possibilities, both of the courses I had available to me. This was a rather depressing thought. We got to our destination and I made it onto the platform before my legs gave way on me. Whether this was a result of the acid in my stomach, dehydration or the strenuous yoga class I had put myself through the night before I'm not sure. But M convinced me that I wasn't dying, and we got to the bar which was actually pretty cool. It was a place called Foundation, which has incredible interior design and seemed to me to give off friendly vibes. I felt the love, so to speak. We had a long island ice tea cocktail, which was served in a teapot alongside a token chocolate digestive and custard cream. There were other drinks served in jam jars which also looked interesting, but we moved onto to another club before I got to try them.
It was a good night, eventually. We got home at 5 in the morning. But it might have been better without the drugs.
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