I Don't Believe It

This morning when I went to the boss's office for the usual what do you want me to do today meeting, I burst into tears. All he'd said was "Good morning, How are you today?"

The reason for the extreme reaction?

I got a phone call from the boyfriend last night telling me that a friend had committed suicide. Not a close friend, just someone that we knew from the astronomy society, but close enough that we would always stop and chat if we met on the street and who had been to our Manchester flat a few times. Under normal circumstances I think I would have said it's a shame and after giving appropriate words of sympathy to relatives would have got on with my life. But this year has been different. This is the fourth person that I know personally who had died since March.

First a guy that lives a floor above me fell down the stone steps of the tenement, resulting in my being "under house arrest" for the best part of the evening (the police woman was very nice and just said politely that I couldn't leave, and when I protested was told that if I really wanted she could make it official) Charlie wrote something in his blog at the time. A couple of weeks after that the old man who lives immediately above me died of a stroke.

My friend, David, died of a heart attack recently (which was the impetus for me starting this blog)., and now this.......

It has gradually built up and is taking it's toll on me. If I sat down and wrote out everything that has happened this year to submit as a plot line for a soap it would be dismissed as unbelieveable. I am sure people are beginning to think that I am a drama queen making it all up to get attention. I wish I was, because then it wouldn't be so horrible and I wouldn't be feeling as though I am sitting on a knife edge between complete hysteria and total numbness. I feel helpless, as though I am an unwilling passenger on a out of control roller-coaster, and at the moment I just want to get off and have my life go back as it was, nice and calm with nothing more than minor storms in teacups.

Whilst writing this entry I am holding down the urge to scream because I am at work and screaming will scare the patients. So, in the words of Penelope Pitstop HAAAAYYYYYLLP!!!!!