It has been an emotionally charged day for me today. I’m a little concerned that I’m actually not outwardly emotional. The phychologist who taught me Emotional Coping Skills would probably be rejoicing in this moment; I however am not. As difficult as my emotional disregulation is, for others as well as for myself, at least I’m getting stuff out. Distracting is great, but those emotions have to go somewhere, if they’re not visible I’m probably suppressing them, essentially bottling them up for another time. I did ask her once what you are supposed to do with negative emotions and the best answer she could come up with was ‘let them go’. I asked her how. I told her I didn’t know how to safely let out my negative feelings without causing damage to myself or property. Her reply? Probably you need more individual work Angel. Individual work the mental health trust weren’t prepared to provide. In short, I’m stuffed.

I had my last poetry group this morning. I feel so sad about that, I had just begun to feel safe in the group, safe enough to really let myself put a bit of me into what I was writing, and that had proved to be incredibly powerful and beneficial. I have also experienced the motivation and creativity to start writing more outside of the sessions, and I don’t want to lose that. Mind you, I am still hypomanic, and creativity tends to go hand in hand with that. When the crash into depression inevitably comes, my words will probably run dry as I concentrate on just surviving once more.

Then this afternoon, I saw Him. I don’t feel the desire to call him *Matt any more – it isn’t his name, I just can’t quite bring myself to actually use his own name yet either. So Him will have to suffice for the time being. As I walked up the path of the mental health centre we both use (in my clompy boots) he looked up to see who was approaching. For a brief moment we looked at each other. Awkwardly. Then I looked at the ground, he looked at the table where he sat, and I sat down on an adjacent bench. The others around the table greeted me, he was silent. I smiled and said hello and made chit chat with the others, while unable to look at him any more than to glance at the side of his head, just enough to notice his hair had been recently shaved. God I loved stroking his hair when it was newly shorn like that! I chain-smoked three ciggies, one after the other, just like that, until I could bear it no longer and headed inside to put the kettle on.

Considering it was the first time I’d actually been face to face with him since he’d inflicted indescribable pain on me, I think I did exceptionally well. Probably the awkward silence between us, which to be fair, I think only the two of us were really aware of, was about the best I could’ve hoped for. I am so far from over this, over Him, it is unbelievable; but we are going to cross paths, even aside from using the same day centre, we live in a small town, and I can’t let this control my life for ever. However since actually seeing him in the flesh, my desire to physically be with him is stronger than before. It is scary, disturbing, how much I still want him. I can only hope those feelings will fade in time.

After the events of the day so far, obviously the only thing to do was go on a crazy spending spree. I’m so stereotypically bipolar it’s unnerving! Hypo girl flashes the cash. Just great.

When I finally got home and opened my post I had a letter from the police officer heading up the review into the case against Him. I had finally decided to exercise my Victim’s Right to Review when I was away from home a couple of weeks ago. I don’t expect the outcome to be any different, I just felt the need to prove I had done everything I could not to just be another unheard victim. I have about accepted there won’t be a prosecution, but I took the review option because it was offered, and I could.

So a lot of emotions looking for an outlet. Hypo me says lets hit the town and get ratted. Wise mind me says have a warm bath and put my bedtime routine into action. It is needed more than ever when I feel least like actually doing it. I’ll let you guess what I’ll actually do!

Thanks for reading 👼🏼