Nineteen
When I was a kid, my mum would push the bedside drawers against the bed to act as a barrier because I tended to roll out. I eventually outgrew that, but it was a sign of the sleeping troubles I would always have. In my twenties, I had bad insomnia. I grew tolerant to sleeping tablets. My GP tried a range of other medications where drowsiness was a side effect. For a while, I had success with an antihistamine, but once I grew used to those I went back to (one set of) sleeping tablets and briefly grew addicted. The thing with the sleeping tablets is I liked the way…
The Other Me
‘The Fugue’ i. When I seriously began writing, I just as seriously believed that by the age of thirty I would’ve made it. I didn’t have the same pretensions (or delusions) I had as a kid that I would have had a best-seller, but I thought writing would’ve forged a career for me. I never imagined I would still be living in my parents’ house, living in a carefully maintained safe environment, and not having accomplished very much. They say with puppies never to discipline them by smacking them on the muzzle because they become ‘hand shy’, and when you go to pat them on the head they’ll shy away…