The Other Me
An ongoing serial about neurosis, beginning with anxiety that burgeoned through my teenage years, and grew into issues also with depression and OCD, amongst other things.
The Other Me
‘Normal as Hell’ iii. From about sixteen, I began going out. Whenever I did, I tried to look cool – just like any other teenager. I spent a lot of time on my hair, and sometimes blow-dried it, although the hair-dryer – in combination with the gels and mousses I used – always made me feel sticky and stifled. That was something that seemed to be developing as I got older, a physical hypersensitivity to external sensation – not that I thought much of it. I also had good facial growth. Some people said I looked like George Michael, although that was never my intention. Whenever I went out, I’d…
The Other Me
‘Normal as Hell’ ii. I finished the first book of my series shortly after returning from holiday – not a bad accomplishment for a seventeen-year-old dropout. It was written by hand, and took up two-and-a-half A5-sized exercise books. Immediately, I redrafted, beginning in a new exercise book, one that was A4-sized (I was moving up in the world, after all) but it felt redundant. I’d done the handwritten book. My productivity tapered until I wasn’t doing much of anything for the next month or so. Then I felt like I was losing myself. One night, I went out with my cousins. We were coming home from a bar when we…